The world is in turmoil with the October Revolution of 1917, riots over the inflationary price of rice, and the military expedition to Siberia in 1918. But Shinsuke, a brothel owner, spends his days in the arms of geishas, paying little heed to the events happening around him.

A strong-willed young prostitute, her mentally challenged brother, and her aging prostitute mother attempt to survive in 1970s Osaka.

Akiko is a housewife bored with her marriage. She has an adulterous affair with a colleague of her husband and decides to follow him to Hong Kong where he has just been transferred. Akiko's husband goes out looking for them without success. Desperate, he lets himself be dragged into the underworld of the city by a mysterious Sino-Japanese man who plunges him into drugs and prostitiution until one day he finally learns the terrible truth about his unfaithful wife.