Conrad Veidt plays a famous musician who is blackmailed for being gay. Eventually he stands trial and is convicted. At the end the film pleads for the abolition of §175 (the law that punishes homosexuality).
The daughter of a daimyo, one forced to commit harakiri to secure her a future to choose her own destiny, falls in love with and marries a European officer. The officer returns to Europe but promises to come back for her and his new child, but when he comes back to Japan, he brings his European wife.
A corrupt young man somehow keeps his youthful beauty, but a special painting gradually reveals his inner ugliness to all.
