電影的故事背景是第二次世界大戰期間的上海市，一個名叫傑米·「吉姆」·格雷厄姆（Jamie "Jim" Graham）的小男孩和生活富足的家人一起生活在這裏，但隨着戰爭的發展，他成了一名戰俘並被關進大日本帝國在當地建立的一個集中營。

1614年，德川家康為了解決孫子竹千代與國千代的繼承權之爭，決定廢止停戰協定，由伊賀代表竹千代、甲賀代表國千代，兩方各選出十人來進行生死對決，由最後生存較多的一方來繼承將軍大位。伊賀繼承人朧與甲賀繼承人弦之介墜入情網，卻被迫成為敵人，必須在愛情與家族使命之間做出選擇。

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.

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.

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.

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.

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