Each member of a middle class Taipei family seeks to reconcile past and present relationships within their daily lives.
When technical illustrator Tony Takitani asks his wife to resist her all-consuming obsession for designer clothes, the consequences are tragic.
Third part in Aleksandr Sokurov's quadrilogy of Power, following Molokh (1999) and Telets (2001), focuses on Japanese Emperor Hirohito and Japan's defeat in World War II when he is finally confronted by General Douglas MacArthur who offers him to accept a diplomatic defeat for survival.
Seven years ago, a mysterious monster was found deep in a rural coal mine. Since then, rumors of a plague spread through the small town, and people experience an unexplainable mental illness.