The story is about the social problems faced by Japan's indigenous Ainu, mostly centered on the reactions of the characters to their oppressed state.
A woman and her daughter are in love with the same man, a chef at the restaurant that the mother manages. He is slightly crippled from frostbite in his years in Siberian labor camps and considers himself 'already dead'.
Story of rebellious youth follows the 19-year-old son of a Hokkaido farmer who has an affair with the daughter of a wealthy trading company president.
