An expansive epic that fails to feel very expansive or very epic. There seems to have been many films since this one that have done the decade spanning love triangle much better. I did like the fact that this focused on a female protagonist though. I even appreciated her "honor-bound" love for her in-laws.
Whether purposefully or not, the love triangle and the splintering life choices of the three focal characters fails to have impact for me. But the main protagonists own transformation at least holds up as a somewhat compelling development. Such a transformation (meaning almost any one at all) I might add is rare for these early Kurosawa films, so in that case, I guess it's worth seeing. If you watch it without your Kurosawa glasses on... well, I hope you dig it. Not too hot for me though.