The film, starring the late movie star Ken Takakura, tells the story of railwayman Etomatsu Sato who has been working on the railway for decades.
During these years, even if his wife and children fell ill and died, even if the Shinkansen became popular, fewer and fewer people took this special line, and even if his colleagues and neighbors gradually left here, he remained in this post until he finally died.
Railroadmen are loyal, and identifying one thing is a lifetime. He stood by principles, the tenets of work and life, like some kind of sacred contract.
His life was so closely bound up with the platform that had been covered in snow all day, and the platform changed his destiny, and in exchange for the contract, he lost his wife and children, and lost almost everything in his life.
However, his fate of the platform could not be changed, and when the platform built for the revival of Japan after World War II was dying with the passage of time, he had to follow.
One day, a girl suddenly appeared in front of him, although she did not know, but the figure was very familiar, it turned out that this was his dead daughter, but this was his own imagination, and after imagining that he was still alone.
Heaven gave him a chance, not a pre-death auditory hallucination, nor a return to the light, he seemed to have truly seen his dead daughter, and his daughter was growing every day, although it was a little incredible, although the audience was confused, but Sato Oto matsu saw his daughter's life.
This is the last scene of the film, and it is also the climax that reflects the protagonist's inner world, a lonely to terrible climax, but it is not real in any way, like a beautiful scene brought by matches, which only appears in moments of helplessness.
Sticking to his job and not accompanying his wife and daughter, he insisted on principles, but he also had a deep sense of guilt, a huge sense of guilt that had always been hidden in his heart.
When he almost cruelly forced his feelings into his heart, and did not give his weak wife and critically ill daughter the slightest, he could experience the loneliness of his wife when she took the train alone to the hospital, but his silent face was silent after all, even if it was a flash of excitement when he met an old friend, even if it was a little sour when he thought of his wife's pregnancy at an advanced age.
Only at the end, when he was convinced that the beautiful girl who was saluting him in the railroad hat was his Yukiko, did tears of happiness flow from his surprised face, with deep regret in them.
When Sato Etomatsu solemnly wrote down "there is no abnormality today" in the platform record book, the epic of this little man ushered in his aria, and the unique tragic plot was completely burst out.
It was certainly inappropriate to retreat in the climax, so when this persistent and resolute old man quietly and sadly ended the dead knot in his heart under the arrangement of Heaven, just like the little girl who sold matches, the matches were extinguished, and he died.
Perhaps Sato Etomatsu is only an insignificant little role in this world, but his persistent personality is extremely noble, becoming the saddest memory of that winter.