Adaptation of the Yukio Mishima novel.

Takuya Tsuda is a cop who loves motorcycles. One day a speeding motorcycle seriously injures a child and his investigations lead Takuya to Akio Yazawa, the boss of the Sakamoto Motorcycle Club.

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.

1930. In splendid snowy settings, the trials and pain of a woman married to a man who maintains a relationship with their servant.

In the 19th century Edo period, sisters Oshizu and Otaka have sacrificed their personal happiness to work and care for their ailing father. Otaka falls in love, but can’t accept a marriage proposal since her older sister needs to marry first. When Oshizu learns of this decision, she takes matters in her own hands.

Fujiko Niwa, a nurse, is in love with Dr. Suga, but fear clutches her heart when she overhears that Reiko, the Director's daughter, is coming to the hospital to see the man she hopes to marry.