A curse on the lives of a noble but unholy family including a womanizer and a yakuza in Shingu, Wakayama Prefecture, Japan, a remote community, casts its shadow over several generations.

Two troubled young lovers - a gambler and a stripper - run off to the tranquil Japanese countryside to marry and start a new life. But their dark past follows them in the form of a veteran loan shark.

Kenji Nakagami, one of the most notable Japanese writers of the post-war, died in 1992. His work reveals a strong connection to his homeland, Kishu: a mountainous region that connects to the Pacific Ocean through a river. "To The Alley" (alternative title) is a documentary about Kenji's life. Incorporating 16 mm images from the writer's personal archive and adding new footage, director Shinji Aoyama travels through the paths of the life and art of the Japanese writer.

Tatsuo, a reverent lumberjack, seeks to disrupt plans to build a marine park on his family land, instead promoting his traditions in reactionary ways.

Kei and Atsuo were both enrolled in summer school. After school, the two head to the beach, they find another student against a local gang member, to see who is able to hold his breath longer under water. They decide to try too.

Yanagimachi's first feature film is about a young man who makes a map of a neighborhood in which he delivers newspapers. He keeps a dossier on each family, recording their habits and rating how much he dislikes them.

Junko Miyashita plays a mysterious hitchhiker picked up by a brute of a construction worker named Kenzo who takes her back to his run-down and cramped apartment in a not so good part of town. Claiming that she is running away from an abusive husband, she shacks up with him. In a futile attempt to escape the bleak working class surroundings, the pair engage in an obsessive erotic relationship.

Though his parents help him run the family business, Jun still feels persecuted by their love; when they bar him from meeting with his girlfriend, tensions increase.