Set in Hamburg's “Hell's Kitchen,” a waterfront milieu of gangsters, pimps, dealers and prostitutes, the story follows the attempts of an ex-seaman first to insinuate himself into the scene, and then to extricate himself from it.
A woman was raped in her school years and broke up with her lover because of it. Later, when she became a high school music teacher, she had forbidden liaisons with her colleagues and students at her apartment.
When the 'Lowly Ronin' helps an orphaned teenage girl avoid being turned into a prostitute, she then claims he is her father and they start a farm as father and daughter until fate steps in and he must draw his sword.
When a dedicated jockey finds that the local politicians are not to be trusted and begins to feel his romance with a beautiful woman slowly slipping away, his last-ditch effort to risk it all for his trusted horse Palomo shows that sometimes animals are truly man's best friend.