A Tokyo family escaping the war relocates to a Hokkaido village; their daughter is set to marry the local leader's son, but her siblings disapprove.

A young woman is forced by circumstance into a loveless marriage while still in love with another. This episodic tale follows their story through three decades of bitter conflict which engulfs their children and those around them.

After surviving the double suicide pact she made with her lover, a woman gives birth to their child.

In a time of continuous civil wars ravaging the fields of feudal Japan, the eldest son of a very poor peasant family, living alongside the bridge over the Fuefuki river, decides to serve a warlord to escape his miserable condition, being soon followed by his younger brothers. Although not all the men of the family take this tragic path of death, women of the family will be doomed to endure the pain of loss during the next five generations.

Iemon Tamiya is an impoverished masterless samurai who craves a better life, which he cannot have because of his marriage to Oiwa, who is completely devoted to her husband.

1951 film

On the way back to his childhood home, a septuagenarian man recalls his childhood and adolescence, in particular his love for a young woman.

1954 film by Keisuke Kinoshita

1958 film by Keisuke Kinoshita

A former aristocratic family faces financial hardship and their daughter is introduced to a nice man in the auto repair business, the hope being that a marriage might be of economic assistance to the family. The daughter's family finds it hard to accept this kind of idea and the young man is uncomfortable with the difference in their social standing. However, everything works out in the end and a happy marriage takes place.