Nabeshima Naoshige murders his lord, Ryuzoji Takafusa, seeking to gain power and steal his Lord’s wife. To avoid her fate, Lady Takafusa drowns herself along with her cat in a nearby marsh. A decade later, Naoshige’s efforts to steal another woman trigger a curse on him when she also commits suicide at the same marsh — forcing him to suffer the consequences of his past actions.

About 1786 the doings of a demented lord results in many masterless samurai, including Iyemon (Kei Sato) who is used to luxury and cannot adjust to the hand-to-mouth conditions & piecework of umbrella making. Having hired ruffians to make him look like a superior swordsman, he arranges for himself the opportunity of a profitable marriage. He hires the half-blind masseur Takuetsu (Sawamura Sounosuke) to seduce or rape his wife (Kyoko Mikage), so that she can be divorced or killed for adultery. But the masseur takes pity & informs Oiwa of her husband's horrid plot. Assisted by the merchant's daughter he intends to marry, Iyemon disfigures his wife attempting to poison her so he can marry higher. There's a lovingly gruesome sequence as she combs blad patches into her hair, kneeling deformed at her mirror, weeping with bitterness. She eventually cuts her own throat, swearing revenge.

The famed ninja Yagyu Jubei fights to suppress a coup d’etat plotted against Tokugawa Shogunate.

Getting an opportunity to meet with another half-Caucasian swordsman, Kyoshiro finds himself involved in a series of dangerous encounters.