# When a Woman Ascends the Stairs (女が階段を上る時)
**When a Woman Ascends the Stairs** (*Onna ga kaidan o noboru toki*, 女が階段を上る時) is a 1960 Japanese drama directed by Mikio Naruse, written and produced by Ryuzo Kikushima, and starring Hideko Takamine as Keiko, a widowed bar hostess in Tokyo's Ginza district who weighs opening her own bar against remarriage.[1](https://jfdb.jp/en/title/7591) • [2](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/onna_ga_kaidan_wo_agaru_toki) Produced and distributed by Toho, it was released in Japan on 15 January 1960 and in the United States on 25 June 1963, and it is widely regarded as one of Naruse's late masterpieces.[3](https://eiga.com/movie/35409) • [2](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/onna_ga_kaidan_wo_agaru_toki) • [4](https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/471-when-a-woman-ascends-the-stairs-they-endure)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Director / writer | Mikio Naruse (成瀬巳喜男); original screenplay and production by Ryuzo Kikushima (菊島隆三), his first film as a producer[1](https://jfdb.jp/en/title/7591) • [3](https://eiga.com/movie/35409) |
| Release | 15 January 1960 (Japan, Toho); 25 June 1963 (United States)[3](https://eiga.com/movie/35409) • [2](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/onna_ga_kaidan_wo_agaru_toki) |
| Format | 111 minutes, black and white, Tohoscope (2.35:1), 35 mm, Perspecta stereophonic sound[5](https://www.kinenote.com/main/public/cinema/detail.aspx?cinema_id=22838) |
| Lead cast | Hideko Takamine (Keiko Yashiro), Masayuki Mori (Nobuhiko Fujisaki), Daisuke Katô (Matsukichi Sekine), Tatsuya Nakadai (Kenichi Komatsu), Reiko Dan (Junko)[2](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/onna_ga_kaidan_wo_agaru_toki) |
| Key crew | Cinematography Masao Tamai; music Toshirô Mayuzumi; production design Satoru Chuko; costumes also designed by star Hideko Takamine[5](https://www.kinenote.com/main/public/cinema/detail.aspx?cinema_id=22838) • [6](https://nfad.nfaj.go.jp/det.php?data_id=313&key=&key_y=&mode=3¬ation_id=&op=AND&page=0&s_page=&sakuhin_id=317) |
| Critical standing | 100% on the Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer (16 reviews) and 93% from audiences; 14th place in Kinema Junpo's 1960 Best Ten[2](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/onna_ga_kaidan_wo_agaru_toki) • [7](https://blog.livedoor.jp/michikusa05/archives/51723976.html) |
## Spoilers
### Plot
Keiko (矢代圭子), a widow approaching thirty, works as the hired madam (mama-san) of a Ginza bar called Lilac.[3](https://eiga.com/movie/35409) • [12](https://dennisschwartzreviews.com/whenawomanascendsthestairs/) When the bar's foreign owner blames her for falling sales, she understands the hint to use her body as the hostess Yuri has done; Yuri, formerly under Keiko, has been set up in her own bar by the fixer Minobe.[3](https://eiga.com/movie/35409) Keiko resolves instead to open a bar of her own, borrowing 100,000 and 200,000 yen at a time from her wealthiest clients through a subscription book, with the manager Komatsu (Nakadai) helping her look for premises.[3](https://eiga.com/movie/35409) • [4](https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/471-when-a-woman-ascends-the-stairs-they-endure)
The plan disappoints her, and her personal life unravels in sequence. Yuri dies in a staged suicide that goes wrong; the kindly press-factory owner Sekine (Katô), whose marriage proposal Keiko accepts only to discover he is already married, never appears again; a night with the bank manager Fujisaki (Mori) ends with him leaving 100,000 yen in stock certificates and transferring to Osaka; and Komatsu, who loves her, slaps her face and asks her to join him, which she hears with emptiness.[3](https://eiga.com/movie/35409) • [4](https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/471-when-a-woman-ascends-the-stairs-they-endure) Ill (she vomits blood from an ulcer) and drinking heavily, Keiko nonetheless returns to work: the film ends with her climbing the bar stairs once more and putting on her game face for the customers.[3](https://eiga.com/movie/35409) • [12](https://dennisschwartzreviews.com/whenawomanascendsthestairs/)
## Production
Kikushima Ryuzo, co-writer of *The Birth of Japan* (日本誕生), wrote the original screenplay and produced the film himself for the first time.[3](https://eiga.com/movie/35409) • [8](https://jfdb.jp/title/7591) Naruse Mikio (1905–1969), by then a veteran of the shoshimin-eiga and women's-picture tradition at Toho, directed; his regular collaborators included cinematographer Masao Tamai and composer Toshirô Mayuzumi, whose xylophone-driven jazz score contributes to the film's modern feel.[9](https://www.dvdtalk.com/dvdsavant/s2231stair.html) • [5](https://www.kinenote.com/main/public/cinema/detail.aspx?cinema_id=22838)
Hideko Takamine, one of Naruse's favorite actresses, not only starred but also designed the costumes, a credit recorded in the National Film Archive of Japan's holdings of the film.[4](https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/471-when-a-woman-ascends-the-stairs-they-endure) • [6](https://nfad.nfaj.go.jp/det.php?data_id=313&key=&key_y=&mode=3¬ation_id=&op=AND&page=0&s_page=&sakuhin_id=317) She came to the role after a year and a half away from the screen while recovering from nervous stomach ulcers, and a contemporary account notes that her slightly worn appearance heightened the character's air of resigned, adult sadness.[10](https://www.24hitomi.or.jp/img/takaminehideko.pdf) The film was shot on location in Tokyo, set in the Ginza bar district.[11](https://www.royalbooks.com/images/upload/catalog-69.pdf)
## The stairs motif and style
The title's stairs are both literal and symbolic. Keiko's daily climb to the bar is repeated four times in the film in a fixed sequence: her full body at the bottom of the stairs, the climb, a close-up of her feet in white stockings, and a low shot as she enters the bar. The repetition gives the movement the feeling of a treadmill, a woman laboring to stay in the same place, and her voice-over on the first ascent states the theme directly: "I hated climbing these stairs more than anything. But once I was up, I would take each day as it came."[13](https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/7394-step-by-step-hideko-takamine-in-when-a-woman-ascends-the-stairs) • [14](https://notcoming.com/reviews/whenawomanascendsthestairs/) Catherine Russell, Professor of Film Studies at [Concordia University](https://www.edgepedia.org/concordia-university), reads the white-stockinged feet as a symbol of the social dynamics of the high-class sex industry that sustains hostess-bar culture.[15](https://www.bloomsbury.com/media/5mqaauoj/academic_key_titles_jan-june_25_low-res.pdf)
Naruse's style is deliberately unostentatious. Phillip Lopate, the American essayist and critic, describes his "invisible" cutting in dialogue scenes, built from close-ups, two-shots, and ensembles that shift characters between foreground and background, and notes that Kurosawa admired Naruse's editing; the camera follows Keiko up the stairs for only about two seconds at a time.[4](https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/471-when-a-woman-ascends-the-stairs-they-endure) Russell's BFI Film Classic on the film likewise analyzes his two-shots in confined spaces, his lighting, and the rhythmic editing.[15](https://www.bloomsbury.com/media/5mqaauoj/academic_key_titles_jan-june_25_low-res.pdf)
## Themes and reception
The film is a study of a working woman's constrained choices in postwar Japan. Keiko refuses to sleep with customers, does not like liquor, and remains faithful to her dead husband's memory, which sets her apart from the stereotypical bar girl and makes her an object of pursuit for the men around her; both paths open to her, opening her own bar or marrying, appear to require sacrificing her independence.[4](https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/471-when-a-woman-ascends-the-stairs-they-endure) Russell argues that the film is a "late" woman's film that engages with the institutional barriers to a woman's success in postwar Japan, balancing social critique with an aestheticization of a harshly gendered world.[15](https://www.bloomsbury.com/media/5mqaauoj/academic_key_titles_jan-june_25_low-res.pdf) A Senses of Cinema annotation places it in the gendai geki (modern drama) tradition and calls it the culmination of Naruse's run of masterpieces that included *Mother* (1952), *Late Chrysanthemums* (1954), *Floating Clouds* (1955), and *Flowing* (1956).[16](https://www.sensesofcinema.com/2015/cteq/when-a-woman-ascends-the-stairs/)
Contemporary Japanese recognition included 14th place in Kinema Junpo's 1960 Best Ten.[7](https://blog.livedoor.jp/michikusa05/archives/51723976.html) Naruse's international reputation, however, grew mainly after his death in 1969, through touring retrospectives and home-video release; the Criterion Collection issued the film on DVD in 2007 with essays by Lopate, Russell, and Audie Bock, and a commentary by Donald Richie.[4](https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/471-when-a-woman-ascends-the-stairs-they-endure) • [9](https://www.dvdtalk.com/dvdsavant/s2231stair.html) The 2007 BFI Southbank retrospective prompted renewed British critical attention, with Peter Bradshaw in *The Guardian* calling it a heartbreaking study comparable to Mizoguchi's *Life of Oharu*; on Rotten Tomatoes the film holds a 100% Tomatometer from 16 critics and a 93% audience score.[17](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2007/jul/01/worldcinema.drama) • [2](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/onna_ga_kaidan_wo_agaru_toki)
## References
1. [女が階段を上る時, JFDB (Japanese Film Database)](https://jfdb.jp/en/title/7591)
2. [When a Woman Ascends the Stairs, Rotten Tomatoes](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/onna_ga_kaidan_wo_agaru_toki)
3. [女が階段を上る時 : 作品情報・キャスト・あらすじ, 映画.com](https://eiga.com/movie/35409)
4. [Phillip Lopate, "When a Woman Ascends the Stairs: They Endure," The Criterion Collection (2007)](https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/471-when-a-woman-ascends-the-stairs-they-endure)
5. [女が階段を上る時 - 作品情報・映画レビュー, KINENOTE](https://www.kinenote.com/main/public/cinema/detail.aspx?cinema_id=22838)
6. [国立映画アーカイブ 所蔵映画フィルム検索システム: 女が階段を上る時](https://nfad.nfaj.go.jp/det.php?data_id=313&key=&key_y=&mode=3¬ation_id=&op=AND&page=0&s_page=&sakuhin_id=317)
7. [幻映画館（98）「女が階段を上る時」, ふらり道草 (livedoor Blog)](https://blog.livedoor.jp/michikusa05/archives/51723976.html)
8. [女が階段を上る時, JFDB (Japanese page)](https://jfdb.jp/title/7591)
9. [DVD Savant Review: When a Woman Ascends the Stairs, DVD Talk](https://www.dvdtalk.com/dvdsavant/s2231stair.html)
10. [高峰秀子が愛した１２本の映画 (program notes PDF)](https://www.24hitomi.or.jp/img/takaminehideko.pdf)
11. [Japanese Cinema auction catalog, Royal Books (draft script entry)](https://www.royalbooks.com/images/upload/catalog-69.pdf)
12. [Dennis Schwartz, "When a Woman Ascends the Stairs" review](https://dennisschwartzreviews.com/whenawomanascendsthestairs/)
13. ["Step by Step: Hideko Takamine in When a Woman Ascends the Stairs," The Criterion Collection](https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/7394-step-by-step-hideko-takamine-in-when-a-woman-ascends-the-stairs)
14. [Leo Goldsmith, "When a Woman Ascends the Stairs," Not Coming to a Theater Near You (2007)](https://notcoming.com/reviews/whenawomanascendsthestairs/)
15. [Catherine Russell, When a Woman Ascends the Stairs, BFI Film Classics, Bloomsbury](https://www.bloomsbury.com/media/5mqaauoj/academic_key_titles_jan-june_25_low-res.pdf)
16. [Mel Aguilar, "When A Woman Ascends the Stairs: Naruse's Representation of Women in Post-War Japan," Senses of Cinema (2015)](https://www.sensesofcinema.com/2015/cteq/when-a-woman-ascends-the-stairs/)
17. [Peter Bradshaw, "When a Woman Ascends the Stairs," The Guardian (2007)](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2007/jul/01/worldcinema.drama)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Drama and biographical films (individual works) › Drama films 1960s › Released 1960 to 1965*
*Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
*Copyright 2026 EdgeChat AI, a subsidiary of Biostate AI.*
License: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license