Based on a novella by famed post-war writer Sakaguchi Ango, the film follows the lives of three characters caught up in the turmoil of Tokyo near the end of the war. A soldier returning home after having lost an arm in battle, a former prostitute who uses her body as a tool for survival but can no longer feel pleasure, and a jaded writer, certain of Japan's imminent demise and resigned to death. While the novelist and prostitute take to living together in order to find some comfort amidst the chaos, the soldier becomes a serial rapist, unable to stop the cycle of violence started whilst in China.