No Regrets for Our Youth

No Regrets for Our Youth is a 1946 Akira Kurosawa film starring Setsuko Hara, Susumu Fujita, Takashi Shimura. It's inspired by an actual 1933 incident and takes the characters through the Japanese invasion of Manchuria through WW2, exploring how their private lives are affected by the politics of the time. Kurosawa is one of our favorite directors.

I watched it via Hulu when they offered it free. Now, sad to say, you need to pay for Hulu+ to watch it. I can't even find a trailer online, but here are some clips from it in a tribute to the actress:

Senses of Cinema says it is "amongst the most fascinating of the director’s early works" and has this to say about the lead character:

it marks the only Kurosawa film to feature a female protagonist. In Yukie (Setsuko Hara), we are given a heroine who is both complex and challenging. Initially childish and emotionally volatile, Yukie undergoes a form of personal development allowing her to see more clearly the world in which she lives. The 13 years covered by the film, 1933 to 1946, feature her evolution from emotional immaturity to wisdom.

Rotten Tomatoes has a critics score of 100%.