Akira Kurosawa, this time as a screenwriter, returns to the Edo period (before 1868) and takes us to the small provincial town of Okabasho in the eastern part of Tokyo bay. Here, where long canals flow through the town, a district lined with red lanterns is separated from the residential area, inhabited by geisha girls who do not live here by choice but were forced here by poverty. Their numbers include the beautiful O-Shin who has fallen in love with a young samurai; she offers him shelter after he has escaped from a group of soldiers. Love and a house of ill-fame, however, do not go together, and O-Shin, who dreams of a wedding and an ordinary life at the side of her beloved, experiences bitter disappointment. As the individual seasons of the year change, so too does the ocean. Then one day the district hemming in the women becomes a true prison. A wild storm strikes the coast and water floods the houses up to their roofs. Destiny takes its course… This is the great Japanese's last project he started prep on shortly before his death in 1998.