The year is 1910. Sekine Saburo (Ide Asato) is a landowner's son living in a beautiful village within Ibaraki Prefecture. He is informed by a mining engineer of the dangers posed by the smoke pollution from the Hitachi Mine in the neighboring village. Furthermore, it is revealed permission to mine was granted by his grandfather (Nakadai Tatsuya) thirty years ago. Sekine gives up his dream to become a diplomat and decides to fight against air pollution.