Quan, el desembre del 1941, l'exèrcit japonès ocupa Xangai, la privilegiada vida de James Graham, un nen anglès de classe alta, s'acaba. És separat dels seus pares i confinat en un camp de concentració pròxim a un aeroport militar xinès. En un ambient dominat per la tristesa i la misèria es veurà obligat a madurar prematurament, i això en condicionarà la visió del món.

During World War II, a shot-down American pilot and a marooned Japanese navy captain find themselves stranded on the same small uninhabited island in the Pacific Ocean.

Al Japó, els clans ninja Kouga i Iga, estaven enfrontats des de feia més de 400 anys. Transcorria l'era Keichou, el 1614, quan el Shogun Ieyasu, que llavors tenia 73 anys, va decidir que ja era hora de triar al seu successor. Ieyasu dubtava entre els seus néts: Yakechiyo, que era el més gran però estúpid, i Kunichiyo, més jove però intel·ligent. Per solucionar aquest dilema, Ieyasu va decidir enfrontar als clans de Kouga i Iga en una lluita. En cas que el clan Kouga resultés vencedor, Kunichiyo seria el nou Shogun. En el cas contrari, el Shogun seria Takechiyo. Els dos clans enfrontats havien gaudit de diversos anys de pau des que Hattori Hanzou els obligués a arribar a una treva. Anys en els quals Gennosuke, de Kouga, i Oboro, d'Iga es van enamorar. Ara, la batalla entre Kouga i Iga és a punt de començar, i els vint ninjas designats aniran caient un darrere l'altre.

Following the detonation of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Japanese military and the government clash over the demand from the Allies for unconditional surrender. Minister of the Army Anami leads the military officers who propose to fight on, even to the death of every Japanese citizen. Emperor Hirohito, however, joins with his ministers in asking the unthinkable, the peaceful surrender of Japan. When the military plots a coup to overthrow the Emperor's civilian government, Anami must face the choice between his desires and loyalty to his Emperor.

The film takes place aboard an American submarine in the Pacific during World War II. The sub's commander is ordered to stop and pick up an underwater demolition team led by Lt. Hayes, whose mission is to locate and destroy a US submarine sunken in a lagoon off Bikini Atoll before the Japanese are able to raise it and capture the advanced radar system on board.

Panic arises among Allied POWs aboard a Japanese freighter when they learn that the ship is actually a decoy target for American submarines on night patrol. The prisoners unite and attack their Japanese captors just as an American sub surfaces and, not knowing the prisoners are aboard, prepares to torpedo the ship.

Up in Heaven, Yuki’s grandparents decide that, having turned thirteen years old, she must go down to Earth to a village that is torn by bandits and intervene to save its people. However if she does not succeed within one year she will become as insubstantial as the wind. Down in the village, Yuki is befriended by a group of orphans whose parents have all been killed by the bandits and who now subsist by begging. Yuki amazes them by taming the wild horse Blizzard. She is instrumental in getting the orphans and farmers to stand up to first the warring bandits and then Goemon, the greedy lord that owns the region. But Yuki must face her greatest challenge yet when the displeased Demon God that lives in the volcano emerges to destroy those who live beneath.

“In Search of Unreturned Soldiers was about former soldiers of the Japanese army who chose not to return to Japan after the war. I found several of them who had remained in Thailand. Two years later, I invited one of them to make his first return visit to Japan and documented it in Outlaw-Matsu Returns Home. During the filming, my subject Fujita asked me to buy him a cleaver so that he could kill his ‘vicious brother.’ I was shocked, and asked him to wait a day so that I could plan how to film the scene. By the next morning, to my relief, Fujita had calmed down and changed his mind about killing his brother. But I couldn’t have had a sharper insight into the ethical questions provoked by this kind of documentary filmmaking.” —Shôhei Imamura