Summaries

Synopsis

An older Japanese sailor is leaving the Kamagme Café, heading back to his ship; when he hears a tune whistled and he starts to panic, and run. He does not escape though and is stabbed in the back with an ornamental knife. The next day, a cargo ship captained by Onizame (Hiroshi Nihon'yanagi) is nearly ready to cast off, but they are waiting for the first mate, Goro Kiezo (Hiroyuki Nagato) to arrive. He is being interrogated by the police about the death of his father, and arrives after two men, both claiming to have been sent by the union hall have been met on board by the bosun Matsu (Senkichi), and started to fight. The younger is Senkichi Namura (Yûjirô Ishihara), and the older one is Sasaki (Rentarô Mikuni), who fights the younger man to a standoff, before the fight is broken up by Goro. The Captain has been impatient to leave, telling his second mate that he has lost his closest friend Sanzo, who was the chief engineer and Goro's father. Noticing the first mate is back, Onizame tells Goro to allow both men to stay on board as they shove off for Hong Kong. When he returns to his cabin after he turns over the helm to the second mate, he discovers his teen aged daughter Akiko (Ruriko Asaoka) is still on board, and then tells Goro to watch her and keep her from harm with the crew. Akiko tries to comfort Goro, saying that Sanzo was like an uncle to her. Going into his father's cabin, Goro discovers the knife that he thought was used to kill his father, and soon thereafter he notices another like it in the drawer of the Captain, which he brings to Onizame's attention. As the ship leaves the harbor, Senkichi catches Akiko's eye, and comments to the girl that the sea is calm now, before the storm, but Sasaki is clearly bothered that the captain has such an innocent daughter. The ship's drunk Hikobei (Kô Nishimura), is eager to get into the shipment of liquor in the hold, and sailor Oyaji is annoyed by the arrogance of the young newcomer Senkichi. They get into a fight below deck, and when Oyaji pulls a knife, and corners the young newcomer, Sasaki manages to break it up by shoving a table between them and restraining Senkichi, while the others restrain the knife holder. The cook, Tatsu (Tomio Aoki), notices some food missing and calls in the crew when he finds a dirty young woman in his pantry. They bring her up on deck and wash her down under Matsu's orders, and discover Akemi (Yumeji Tsukioka), a brazen young woman who has followed Senkichi aboard. Senkichi tells her that he wants nothing to do with her, but she now is adopted by the crew, even though some, including Oyaji try to get her alone to assault her. Seeing this Tatsu calls on Senkichi to help, and he sets the older sailor in his place. Eventually Akemi befriends the young sailor Ken who is mourning the infidelity of his girl on shore, and nurses the lad back to health when he gets sick by staying on deck during a storm. But she treats the lad as a younger brother, and still pines for the brash Senkichi. When Captain Onizame learns the last name of Senkichi, he is alarmed, and tells Goro that he believes that Namura may have killed his father. Goro gets Senkichi alone on deck, and asks the young man if he was responsible for Sanzo's death. When Senkichi tells Goro, about the theft of his father by Sanzo and Captain Onizame who stole the ship from the three way partnership, Goro lets the matter drop. The crew are spooked when one of the life boats is missing, and later when Senkichi is nearly killed by a falling pulley on the main deck, saved only by the quick thinking of Sasaki. They also start to suspect that something is not right, when many of the bottles of liquor that they steal from the cargo are filled with water. Akiko is attracted to the deck by a song being whistled, and finds Senkichi on deck. He teaches her the tune, which further spooks Captain Onizame when he hears it, then the next night Senkichi teaches her the words, playing a ukulele. Upset when he learns that his daughter is attracted to Senkichi, Onizame challenges the young man to a fight, but for a third time Sasaki intercedes. Now Onizame is sure that Senkichi is Sanzo's killer, who now is using Akiko to get at himself. Senkichi has started to suspect that Sasaki is a cop. He gets Akemi to come on to the older man to get information, but uses their deck side encounter to go through Sasaki's bag, where he finds a pair of hand cuffs. Meanwhile, mistaking the taciturn Sasaki for a fellow criminal on the run, the bosun Matsu tells Sasaki that he has been on sea for nearly 30 years, since he killed his wife for cheating on him, and that he will finally be a free man when they reach Hong Kong, after the 30 year statute of limitations expires. The radio is damaged, just before a major storm, and the crew is getting restless, particularly when the discover that most of the cargo is not cement, but sand, and not liquor, but water, and that there is dynamite in the hold. They are incited to action when Sasaki tells them of another ship that was scuttled by the officers, with almost all the crew lost, after the radio and life boats were destroyed. But the police were able to thwart the insurance scam and arrest the culprits based on the one surviving crew member who managed to make it to shore. As the storm comes up, the crew are confronting the captain, when the anchor gets loose and starts to hit eh side of the boat. The second mate, who had been instructed to blow the ship, is washed overboard, and the first mate, ties himself to both Senkichi and Sasaki and the deck to get the old ratchet working again. But both Goro and Sasaki are washed overboard, still strapped to Senkichi, who manages to hold them close to the ship until they can climb back on board. The three then get the motor of the ratchet working again and bring the anchor aboard. but in the storm another fixture on the ship collapses onto the Captain, and he is buried at sea. Now having saved both Goro and Sasaki, Senkichi feels less indebted to them , but he still has to find a way to tell the grieving Akiko that he cannot be her partner. He reassures her that her father was a good man, unlike himself. Then he tells the girl that he is leaving to open a seaside cafe with Akemi, and that she should consider Goro again. When they reach the dock, Ken is clearly distressed that Akemi, is leaving with Senkichi, and reenlists, Matsu has learned from overhearing a conversation between Senkichi and Sasaki, that Sasaki is a cop, so he tries to avoid his confessor. Sasaki questions Goro about the insurance scam, which he only discovered after boarding the ship, and tells the first mate to report it. He then addresses Matsu confidentially, telling the bosun that he will not press charges. Finally Sasaki leaves the ship on a harbor tug with Senkichi and Akemi, telling the younger man to take a day to have dinner and a night on the town before looking him up to turn himself in. This is a textured film, with a number of interesting well told story lines and characters, where even the enemies have a grudging respect for each other.