Setting: Tokyo area in the early 1920s.

Synopsis:
Gen and her younger brother Hekiro live with their father, a moderately successful writer, and their step mother, who is partially crippled by rheumatism. It is only Gen, however, who tries to assert control over the wild and incorrigible Hekiro. While Hekiro gets in trouble with the police for shoplifting and is forced to change schools, his step mother may complain, but neither parent uses a strong hand to reign him in. Yet within the constant quarrelling between Gen and Hekiro can be sensed a deep affection; thus when Gen is harrassed by a man from the police intent on using Hekiro's situation to take advantage of Gen, it is Hekiro and his friends who save her.
But Gen's efforts to tame Hekiro come to little avail. He begins running up debts playing billiards and riding motor boats and tricks Gen into playing them. He then switches to horses and one day fiercely drives one until it breaks its leg. Feeling remorse over the horse, Hekiro goes on a drinking spree in town and loses his virginity. Gen and Hekiro fight over the matter but again the parents refuse to assert their authority and Gen, as if feeling Hekiro is her responsibility, decides to refuse a marriage proposal.
One summer, however, Hekiro is diagnosed with a pulmonary disease and is sent to a clinic near the seashore. Gen, putting aside everything, devotes her days to nursing Hekiro but he only seems to get worse. Hekiro, sensing the end is near, tells Gen he wants to see her in the hairstyle of a bride. One night, while Gen sleeps on the floor next to him, her wrist tied by a ribbon to his so that he can wake her, arises in the dark to Hekiro's rough beathing. She calls the doctor and the entire family, even the incapacitated mother, gathers to watch over Hekiro's last minutes. Hekiro dies and Gen, out of pure exhaustion, collapses. She is back on her feet within minutes, however, still willing, it seems, to watch over her younger brother.

Notes:
Based on a semi-autobiographical novel by Koda Aya, daughter of the Meiji era novelist Koda Rohan, Younger Brother is one of Ichikawa Kon's most honored films, winning an award at Cannes and earning selection as the best film of 1960 in the Kinema Junpo critics poll. Avoiding crass sentimentalism, Ichikawa uses hard edged, objective camera work to present, on the one hand, the pathetic underside of a Japanese family, and, on the other, the unique, almost incestuous relation between a brother and sister. The film is blessed with excellent performances by its four main actors and brilliant cinematography by Miyagawa Kazuo, who purposely cut short the film developing time to create he grayish, bleak color scheme that both symbolizes the family's state and emphasizes the atmosphere of the 1920s.