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Antarctica (Nankyoku monogatari)

In February 1958, the Second Cross-Winter Expedition for the Japanese Antarctic Surveying Team rides on the icebreaker Sōya to take over from the 11-man First Cross-Winter Expedition. The First Cross-Winter Expedition retreats by helicopter, leaving 15 Sakhalin huskies chained up at the Showa Base for the next Expedition.

Due to the extreme weather conditions, Sōya can not get near enough to the base and it is decided not to proceed with the handover, leaving the base unmanned. The team is worried about the dogs, as the weather is extremely cold and only one week of food for the dogs has been left. They wish to rescue them but in the end are unable to, due to a shortage of fuel and drinking water.

Eight of the fifteen sled dogs manage to break loose from their chains (Riki, Anko, Shiro, Jakku, Deri, Kuma, Taro, and Jiro), while the other seven starve. As the eight journey across the frozen wilderness, they are forced to survive by hunting penguins and seals on the ice shelves and even by eating seal excrement. As the months pass, most die or disappear. Riki is fatally injured by a killer whale while trying to protect Taro and Jiro. Anko and Deri fall through the ice and drown in the freezing waters. Shiro falls off a cliff to his death, and Jakku and Kuma disappear in the wilderness.

Eleven months later, on 14 January 1959, Kitagawa, one of the dog handlers in the first expedition, returns with the Third Cross-Winter Expedition, wanting to bury his beloved dogs. He, along with the two dog-handlers Ushioda and Ochi, recover the frozen corpses of the seven chained dogs, but are surprised to discover that eight others have broken loose. To everyone's surprise, they are greeted warmly at the base by Taro and Jiro, brothers who were born in Antarctica.

It is still unknown how and why they survived, because an average husky can only live in such conditions for about one month. In the movie, the director used the data available, together with his imagination, to reconstruct how the dogs struggled with the elements and survived.