The first glimpse of Koji Yakusho when the film starts, appalls the viewers. He stands on the busy street at night all alone. Look at the above picture. He looks sad, lonely and above all, gives the impression that he is deeply withdrawn in his own shell. At the next scene, he looks up at a huge screen on top of a tall building, which is an advertisement for a newly released CD by a violinist, named Kaoru Mabuchi. Her photo shows that she is young and beautiful. Looking up at her photo, the man looks very moved with admiration and affection. The viewer also notices at this time that he has got a scar from a burn below his left ear.
What we gradually come to know about this man is that his name is Taka-aki Ise, owner of several clubs and restaurants in Tokyo. He has a friend named Fuda, who seems to belong to a big yakuza group. Fuda's wife, Kyoko, once loved Ise, but married Fuda as she was not certain if Ise loved her or not.
One summer night, a journalist was shot to death in Tokyo. A police detective, Sako (Ken Watanabe) starts investigating the murder. Sako finds in due course that the gun which was used to kill the journalist had been used nearly ten years before.
Sako comes to know that Ise is actually a man named Tetsuro Haga, who murdered his own father with the gun due to anger and hatred toward him. Tetsuro's father, who was violent and wicked, drove his mother to suicide. His mother, escaping from the violent husband with young Tetsuro duly met a gentle man called Haga, a cargo ship doctor, and remarried. Her ex-husband found where she was , cheated her and acquired the right for their large house, while her husband was at sea. Distressed, she made up her mind to die by setting fire to the house one night. Tetsuro became aware of the fire and got out of the burning house with his little half-sister, Kaoru. Tetsuro and Kaoru were sent to an orphanage in Kobe, where they made friends with Shinji and Chikoko. They grew up together like real brothers and sisters. Tetsuro taught Kaoru how to play the kena-lute with a tune which his gentle step- father used to teach. That was Parionita.
Kaoru, who had a wonderful talent for music was adopted by a university professor of music (Mabuchi) and became a popular violinist.
It was Shinji who murdered the journalist, because he found that the man, who was Chikako's boyfriend, had started investigating the secret background of Kaoru, who was just engaged to a millionaire businessman He used the same gun which he had actually been asked to discard in the sea ten years before by Tetsuro, whom he admires like his elder brother.
After knowing what had happened, Tetsuro has now one possible idea to save Kaoru and his old friends from the scandal and being arrested at the same time. That was to shoot the yakuza who ordered a subordinate to kill Fuda because of the conflict between the two yakuza groups, using the same gun, but that means .....
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