The Scent of Incense (香華, Kōge)[a] is a 1964 Japanese drama film based on a novel by Sawako Ariyoshi and directed by Keisuke Kinoshita.
Tomoko, now a geisha, starts a relationship with cadet Ezaki with the prospect of marriage, but his family denies its approval due to Ikuyo's profession.
Amidst the ruins of a bomb-ridden Tokyo, where Tomoko and Ikuyo live in a cellar, the mother is reunited with Hachiran who had gone missing during the Second World War.
Tomoko hears of the imprisonment and death sentence of Ezaki for a war crime, but when she is finally admitted to visit him in jail after months of waiting, he pretends not to know her.
After Ikuyo's death in a traffic accident while Tomoko is in hospital, Hachiran returns to his home town.