Kanji Watanabe is a middle-aged man who has worked in the same monotonous bureaucratic position for decades. Learning he has cancer, he starts to look for the meaning of his life.

Jack Barrett is the type of guy no one calls Jack. He works for a group of businessmen known as "The Gentlemen" who operate within the fertile realm of the Sydney Underworld. Standover tactics, prostitution, illegal gambling, creative importation - you name it, "The Gentlemen" are into it. And Barrett enforces it for them. Old school muscle for hire. Now 53 years old, he's tired of having to throw away perfectly good suits because you can't dry-clean the blood off. He needs to get out of Sydney. Out of the game. Which is, of course, easier said than done.

Jim Jansson is a woodcarver who gets retired.