The film reconciled most of the major aesthetic advancements made by Mizoguchi up to this point in his career.
Traveling Actors remains Mikio Naruse’s out-and-out funniest work, a comedy of numerous surface pleasures that unexpectedly deepens in retrospect.
By film’s end, you weep for Oharu because you hope that in death she will be able to find what she was looking for in life.