The film is set in Fukagawa in the early Showa period and depicts a fateful confrontation between two men who rise and fall in a black stream, trying to live a real human life, violating the cruel laws of the passing generation.
Two New York cops get involved in a gang war between members of the Yakuza, the Japanese Mafia. They arrest one of their killers and are ordered to escort him back to Japan.
A lethal assassin for a secret Chinese organisation, who sheds tears of regret each time he kills, is seen swiftly and mercilessly executing three Yakuza gangsters by a beautiful artist.
A respectable village head decides to keep his son away from the violent politics of rural life. However, fate intervenes, forcing the young man to not only return home, but also take up the sickle.
Murakawa, an aging Tokyo yakuza tiring of gangster life, is sent by his boss to Okinawa along with a few of his henchmen to help end a gang war, supposedly as mediators between two warring clans.
A Japanese Yakuza gangster's deadly existence in his homeland gets him exiled to Los Angeles, where he is taken in by his little brother and his brother's gang.
Traveling lawman comes to town and schools the residents in collective farming practices. There's also a bad guy with a lot of money who's cut off the water supply to the area's farmers, and the soul of a murder victim that manifests as a flying fireball.