In December 1944 during the reign of the Arrow Cross Party in World War II, four friends are chatting around the table of a bar owned by Béla when a wounded photographer who has just come back from the battlefront joins them. During their gathering, two Arrow Cross officers come in for a drink. After leaving, the group bitterly refer to them as murderers. One of the friends, a watchmaker named Miklós Gyuricza, poses a moral question to János about two hypothetical characters; Tomóceusz Katatiki and Gyugyu. Tomóceusz Katatiki was the leader of an imaginary island, and Gyugyu was his slave. The powerful and careless Katatiki treated the poor Gyugyu with extreme brutality, but never felt any remorse as he lived by the barbarian morality of his age. Gyugyu lived in misery and suffering but found comfort in the fact that whatever cruelty happens to him it is never caused by him and he is still a guiltless person with a clear conscience. What would he choose, if he had to die and reincarnate as one of them? The photographer says that he would choose Gyugyu, but the others don't believe him. As they go home we get to know some of the deepest secrets of their lives. It turns out that Gyuricza is hiding Jewish children at his flat. Meanwhile, László drinks excessively, plagued with the question Gyuricza posed, and experiences hallucinations in his drunken stupor. The next evening, the four friends are at the bar again when Arrow Cross officers arrest them after being advised the friends called the party officers murderers. They are taken to an office of the party where an Arrow Cross official (Zoltán Latinovits) forces them to slap a dying partisan in the face in order to be freed. Gyuricza is the only one that complies. Gyuricza exits the building, severely disturbed by what transpired. As he walks through the city, buildings explode and crumble.

In March 1945, American bombers destroy most of Kobe during the waning days of the Pacific War. Seita and his sister Setsuko, children of an Imperial Japanese Navy captain, survive, but their mother dies. She is cremated in a mass grave outside and Seita is seen carrying a small wooden box containing her ashes. Seita conceals their mother's death from Setsuko. The siblings move in with an aunt. He hides his mother's box of ashes in the garden. Seita retrieves a supply cache he buried before the bombing and gives everything to his aunt, save for a tin of Sakuma drops, which he gives to Setsuko. The aunt convinces Seita to sell his mother's silk kimonos for rice, which devastates Setsuko. As rations dwindle, the aunt becomes resentful of the children as Seita does nothing to earn the food she prepares for them. At her suggestion, Seita withdraws some money from his mother's bank account to buy a charcoal stove and other supplies. Following an air raid, the siblings move into an abandoned bomb shelter. Among the belongings is the wooden box of his mother's ashes. They capture fireflies from the marshes and release them into the refuge for light. The following morning the fireflies have died. Setsuko buries them and reveals their aunt told her their mother died, then tearfully asks why the fireflies had to die so soon. The situation becomes dire when they run out of rice. A friendly farmer recommends that Seita swallow his pride and return to his aunt, but he refuses, instead stealing crops from farms and breaking into homes during air raids. A farmer catches him and brings him to the police station, but the sympathetic policeman lets him go. Setsuko falls ill, and a doctor explains she is suffering from malnutrition. Seita withdraws the last of the money from their mother's bank account. He is distraught to learn that Japan has surrendered and that his father is most likely dead, as most of Japan's naval fleet has been sunk. Seita returns to Setsuko with food and finds her hallucinating. She dies as Seita finishes preparing the food. Seita cremates Setsuko's body and her doll in a straw casket. He carries her ashes in the candy tin along with his father's photograph. Seita dies of starvation a few weeks later at a Sannomiya train station surrounded by other malnourished people. A janitor, tasked with removing the bodies before the Americans' arrival, sorts through Seita's possessions. He finds the candy tin and throws it into a field. Setsuko's ashes spread out, and her spirit springs from the container, joined by Seita's spirit and a cloud of fireflies. The two board a ghostly train and, throughout the journey, look back at the events leading to Seita's death as silent, passive observers. Their spirits, healthy and content, arrive at their destination: a hilltop bench overlooking present-day Kobe, surrounded by fireflies.

In December 1941, American expatriate Rick Blaine owns a nightclub and gambling den in Casablanca, then in French Morocco. "Rick's Café Américain" attracts a varied clientele, including Vichy French and German officials, refugees desperate to reach the still-neutral United States, and those who prey on them. Although Rick professes to be neutral in all matters, he ran guns to Ethiopia in 1935 and fought on the Republican side in the Spanish Civil War. Petty crook Ugarte boasts to Rick of letters of transit obtained by murdering two German couriers. The papers allow the bearers to travel freely around German-occupied Europe and to neutral Portugal. Ugarte plans to sell them at the club and persuades Rick to hold them for him; however, Ugarte is arrested by the local police under Captain Louis Renault, the unabashedly corrupt prefect of police. Ugarte is killed while in custody without revealing that Rick has the letters. Then, the reason for Rick's cynical nature—former lover Ilsa Lund—enters his establishment. Spotting Sam, Rick's friend and house pianist, Ilsa asks him to play " As Time Goes By ". Rick storms over, furious that Sam disobeyed his order to never perform that song again, and is stunned to see Ilsa. She is accompanied by her husband, Victor Laszlo, a renowned fugitive Czechoslovak Resistance leader. A flashback reveals Ilsa left Rick without explanation when the couple were planning to flee as the German army neared Paris in 1940, embittering Rick. Laszlo and Ilsa need the letters to escape, while German Major Strasser arrives in Casablanca to prevent that. When Laszlo makes inquiries, Signor Ferrari, an underworld figure and Rick's friendly business rival, divulges his suspicion that Rick has the letters. Laszlo returns to Rick's café that night and tries to buy them. Rick refuses to sell, telling Laszlo to ask his wife why. They are interrupted when Strasser leads a group of German officers in singing " Die Wacht am Rhein ". Laszlo orders the house band to play " La Marseillaise ", and Rick allows it. Patriotism grips the crowd and everyone joins in, drowning out the Germans. Afterwards, Strasser has Renault close the club on a flimsy pretext. Later, Ilsa confronts Rick in the deserted café; when he refuses to give her the letters, she threatens him with a gun but then confesses she still loves him. She explains that when they met and fell in love in Paris, she believed her husband had been killed while attempting to escape from a concentration camp. When she learned that Laszlo was alive and in hiding, she left Rick without explanation to nurse her sick husband. Rick's bitterness dissolves. He agrees to help, letting Ilsa believe she will stay with him, while Laszlo leaves Casablanca. When Laszlo unexpectedly shows up, having narrowly escaped a police raid on a Resistance meeting, Rick has waiter Carl spirit Ilsa away. Laszlo, aware of Rick's love for Ilsa, tries to persuade him to use the letters to take her to safety. When the police arrest Laszlo on a trumped-up charge, Rick persuades Renault to release him by promising to set Laszlo up for a much more serious crime: possession of the letters. To allay Renault's suspicions, Rick explains that he and Ilsa will use the letters to leave for America. When Renault tries to arrest Laszlo as arranged, however, Rick forces him at gunpoint to assist in their escape. At the last moment, Rick makes Ilsa board the plane to Lisbon with Laszlo, telling her that she would regret it if she stayed, "Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon and for the rest of your life." Strasser, tipped off by Renault, drives up alone. Strasser attempts to stop the plane and then draws a gun on Rick; the latter shoots him dead. When policemen arrive, Renault pauses, then orders them to "round up the usual suspects." He suggests to Rick that they join the Free French in Brazzaville. As they walk away into the fog, Rick says, "Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship."

In 1916, during World War I in Northern France, French Major General Georges Broulard orders his subordinate, Brigadier General Paul Mireau, to take "the Anthill", a well-defended German position. Mireau initially refuses, citing the impossibility of success. When Broulard mentions a potential promotion, Mireau convinces himself the attack will succeed. In the trenches, Mireau throws a private out of the regiment for showing signs of shell shock. Mireau leaves the planning of the attack to Colonel Dax, despite Dax's protests. Before the attack, drunken Lieutenant Roget leads a night-time scouting mission, sending one of his two men ahead. Overcome by fear while waiting for the man's return, Roget lobs a grenade, accidentally killing the scout. Corporal Paris, the surviving scout, confronts Roget, who denies wrongdoing and falsifies his report to Colonel Dax. The daylight attack on the Anthill is a failure. Dax leads the first wave of soldiers into no man's land under heavy rifle and machine gun fire but none of them reach the German trenches and the follow up waves refuse to attack. Mireau orders his artillery to fire on them to force them onto the battlefield. The artillery commander refuses without written confirmation of the order. To deflect blame for the attack's failure, Mireau decides to court-martial a hundred soldiers for cowardice. Broulard orders Mireau to reduce the number and Mireau asks each company in the attacking wave to select one man. Roget picks Corporal Paris to keep him from testifying about the scouting mission. Private Ferol is deemed a "social undesirable" by his commander. Private Arnaud is chosen at random by lots, despite being decorated twice for heroism. Dax, a criminal defense lawyer in civilian life, volunteers to defend the men at their court-martial. The trial, however, is a farce. There is no formal written indictment, a court stenographer is not present, and the court refuses to admit evidence that would support acquittal. In his closing statement, Dax angrily denounces the proceedings. Dax later informs Broulard that Mireau had ordered their artillery to fire onto French soldiers. Despite Dax's efforts to save his men, the sentence of death is confirmed and the condemned men are eventually shot by firing squad. Following the executions, Broulard tells Mireau that he will be investigated for shelling his own men. Mireau denounces this as a betrayal by his commanding officer. Broulard offers Mireau's vacant command to Dax, assuming Dax's attempts to stop the executions were a ploy to gain Mireau's job. Disgusted at Broulard's assumption, Dax lashes out at him. Discovering Dax was sincere, Broulard rebukes him for his idealism, and Dax in turn denounces Broulard's nihilism. Shortly afterwards, Dax notices some of his soldiers carousing loudly at an inn and jeering at a captive German girl, but they grow more subdued as she sings a sentimental German folk song, " The Faithful Hussar ". Dax is informed by Boulanger that they have new orders to return to the trenches immediately, but Dax instead allows the men to stay in the bar for a while longer before returning to his office.

In 1969, during the Vietnam War, jaded MACV-SOG operative Captain Benjamin L. Willard is summoned to I Field Force headquarters in Nha Trang. The officers there tell him that U.S. Army Special Forces Colonel Walter E. Kurtz is waging a brutal war against North Vietnamese Army, Viet Cong, and Khmer Rouge forces without permission from his commanders. Kurtz is based at a remote jungle outpost in eastern Cambodia, where he commands American, Montagnard, and local Khmer militia troops who worship him. Willard is ordered to "terminate command... with extreme prejudice." He joins a U.S. Navy river patrol boat (PBR) commanded by the Chief Petty Officer Phillips, with crewmen Lance Johnson, "Chef" Hicks, and "Mr. Clean" Miller to quietly navigate up the Nùng River to Kurtz's outpost. Before reaching the coastal mouth of the Nùng, they rendezvous with the 1st Squadron, 9th Cavalry Regiment, a helicopter-borne air assault unit of the 1st Cavalry Division commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Bill Kilgore, to coordinate safe entry into the river. Kilgore hasn't been briefed on Willard's mission but becomes more engaged after discovering that Lance, a well-known fellow surfer, is with him. Kilgore agrees to escort the boat through the Nùng's Viet Cong -held coastal mouth and a full-scale air assault is executed on the village with " Ride of the Valkyries " playing on loudspeakers. Resisting Kilgore's attempts to convince Lance to surf with him on the newly conquered beach, Willard gathers the sailors to board the PBR and continue their mission. Going ashore to find mangos, Willard and Chef are surprised by a tiger, leading Chef to have a brief mental breakdown. Willard starts seeing cracks form in the crew. Tensions rise when Willard insists on the priority of his mission over the Chief's usual patrol objectives. Willard partially reveals his orders to convince the Chief of the mission's importance. As Willard studies Kurtz's dossier, he is shocked by Kurtz's mid-career sacrifice by leaving a prestigious Pentagon assignment to join Special Forces, all but destroying his chances for career advancement. At a remote U.S. Army outpost, the boat receives a dispatch bag containing both official and personal mail. Willard learns that another MACV-SOG operative, Special Forces Captain Richard Colby, was sent on an earlier mission identical to Willard's and has since joined Kurtz. Lance activates a smoke grenade while under the influence of LSD, attracting enemy fire, causing Mr. Clean's death. Further upriver, the Chief is impaled by a spear thrown by Montagnards and attempts to kill Willard with the spear point protruding from his chest, but Willard overpowers him. Willard reveals his mission to Chef, now commanding the PBR. They arrive at Kurtz's outpost, a Khmer temple teeming with Montagnards and strewn with the remains of victims. Willard, Chef, and Lance are greeted by an American photojournalist, who praises Kurtz's genius. Willard encounters Colby and five other American soldiers among the Montagnards. He sets out with Lance to find Kurtz, leaving Chef with orders to call in an airstrike on the outpost if the two do not return. In the camp, Willard is questioned by Kurtz, then locked in a bamboo cage. One night Kurtz appears and drops Chef's severed head into Willard's lap. Willard is released, and warned not to attempt escape. Kurtz lectures him on his theories of war, praising the ruthlessness of the Viet Cong, and asks Willard to tell his son the truth about his mutiny. As the Montagnards ceremonially kill a water buffalo, Willard attacks Kurtz with a machete, essentially dismembering him in a frantic rage. Kurtz collapses and silently whispers "the horror", before dying. Kurtz's followers watch Willard depart with Kurtz's writings, and bow down to him. Willard leads Lance back to the PBR, and they depart.

United States Air Force Brigadier General Jack D. Ripper, the commander of Burpelson Air Force Base, orders his executive officer, Group Captain Lionel Mandrake (an exchange officer from the Royal Air Force), to put the base on alert (condition red, the most intense lockdown status), confiscate all privately owned radios from base personnel and issue "Wing Attack Plan R" to the planes of the 843rd Bomb Wing. At the time of issuance of said order, the planes, flying B-52 bombers armed with thermonuclear bombs, are on airborne alert two hours from their targets inside the Soviet Union. The aircraft commence attack flights on the USSR and set their radios to allow communications only through their CRM 114 discriminators, which are designed to accept only communications preceded by a secret three-letter code known only to General Ripper. Happening upon a radio that had been missed earlier and hearing regular civilian broadcasting, Mandrake realizes that no attack order has been issued by the Pentagon and tries to stop Ripper, who locks them both in his office. Ripper tells Mandrake that he believes the Soviets have been fluoridating American water supplies to pollute the "precious bodily fluids " of Americans. Mandrake realizes Ripper has gone completely mad. In the War Room at the Pentagon, General Buck Turgidson briefs President Merkin Muffley and other officers about how "Plan R" enables a senior officer to launch a retaliatory nuclear attack on the Soviets if all of his superior officers have been killed in a first strike on the United States. Trying every CRM code combination to issue a recall order would require two days, so Muffley orders the U.S. Army to storm the base and arrest General Ripper. Turgidson, noting the slim odds of recalling the planes in time, then proposes that Muffley not only let the attack proceed but send reinforcements. Muffley rejects Turgidson's recommendation and instead brings Soviet ambassador Alexei de Sadeski into the War Room to telephone Soviet Premier Dimitri Kissov. Muffley warns the premier of the impending attack and offers to reveal the targets, flight plans, and defensive systems of the bombers so that the Soviets can protect themselves. After a heated discussion with a drunken Kissov, the ambassador informs President Muffley that the Soviet Union created a doomsday machine as a nuclear deterrent; it consists of many buried cobalt bombs, which are set to detonate automatically should any nuclear attack strike the country. The resulting nuclear fallout would render the Earth's surface uninhabitable for 93 years. The device cannot be deactivated, as it is programmed to explode if any such attempt is made. The president's German scientific adviser, the paraplegic former Nazi Dr. Strangelove, points out that such a doomsday machine would only have been an effective deterrent if everyone knew about it; de Sadeski replies that Kissov had planned to reveal its existence to the world the following week at the Party Congress. When the U.S. Army troops gain control of Burpelson, General Ripper fatally shoots himself. Mandrake infers the CRM code from doodles on Ripper's desk blotter and relays it to the Pentagon. Using the code, Strategic Air Command successfully recalls all of the bombers except for one, commanded by Major T. J. "King" Kong. Because its radio equipment was damaged by a Soviet SAM, it is unable to receive or send communications. Major Kong flies below radar and switches targets, thus preventing Soviet air radar from detecting and intercepting their plane. Because the Soviet missile also damaged the bomb bay doors, Kong enters the bay and repairs the electrical wiring. When he is successful, the bomb drops with him straddling it. Kong joyously hoots and waves his cowboy hat as he rides the falling bomb to his death. In the War Room, Dr. Strangelove recommends that the President gather several hundred thousand people to live in deep underground mines where the radiation will not penetrate. Worried that the Soviets will do the same, Turgidson warns about a "mineshaft gap" (spoofing the term " missile gap ") while de Sadeski secretly photographs the War Room. Dr. Strangelove prepares to announce his plan for that when he suddenly stands up out of his wheelchair and exclaims, " Mein Führer, I can walk!" The movie ends with a montage of explosions set to " We'll Meet Again " signifying the activation of the doomsday device.

In 1943, Flyora and another Belarusian boy dig up a rifle from a trench to join the Soviet partisans. They do so in defiance of their village elder, who warns them that this would arouse the suspicions of the occupying Germans. The boys' activities are noticed by a reconnaissance aircraft. The next day, partisans arrive at Flyora's house to conscript him against his mother's wishes. Flyora is taken to a partisan camp in the forest, where he becomes a low-rank militiaman who performs menial tasks. When those partisans trained to fight leave, their commander Kosach orders Flyora and several other men to remain behind at the camp. Bitterly disappointed, Flyora walks into the forest weeping. He comes across Glasha, an emotionally unstable adolescent girl working as a partisan nurse. The forest is suddenly attacked by dive bombers and German paratroopers, forcing the duo to flee. They hide from German officers passing through the forest and sleep under a tree for the night. Flyora and Glasha travel to his village, only to find it deserted. Denying that his family is dead, Flyora believes they are hiding on a nearby island across a bog and runs off. Glasha follows, by chance seeing a pile of executed villagers behind his house, before yelling at Flyora to leave quickly. They become hysterical after wading through the bog, where Glasha screams at Flyora that his family is dead. Rubezh, a partisan fighter, rescues them and takes them to meet the surviving villagers. The village elder, severely burned by gasoline, tells Flyora of his family's deaths and repeats his warning about digging up the rifle. Once again hysterical, Flyora submerges his head in the bog, but Glasha and the villagers stop him. Rubezh takes Flyora and two other men to raid a warehouse for food. The group find the warehouse unexpectedly guarded by German troops and are forced to retreat. Flyora's two comrades are killed by a land mine. Rubezh and Flyora coerce a Nazi-collaborating farmer to hand over his cow, but a German machine gun kills Rubezh and the cow. Flyora attempts to steal a horse and cart from another man to transport the cow, but he convinces Flyora to hide his gun and Red Army jacket as SS troops appear. He takes Flyora to his house in Perekhody village. German troops and collaborators surround and occupy the village. Flyora runs outside and sees women, children, and the elderly being forcibly marched down the street. Flyora warns them that they are being herded to their deaths, but he is forced into a barn church with them. The Germans barricade the doors, leaving the people inside screaming while the soldiers laugh. Flyora and a young woman with a child exit the church; the woman's child is thrown back in while she is dragged off to be gang raped. The soldiers throw explosives into the church and barricade the windows. The church is set on fire, killing everyone inside as the soldiers celebrate. A German officer holds a pistol to Flyora's head to pose for a picture, then abandons him as the soldiers leave. Flyora wanders away from the scorched village, finding the aftermath of a partisan ambush on the escaping Germans. Flyora recovers his jacket and rifle, only to spot the gang-raped woman bleeding and stumbling in a fugue state. He finds Kosach and the partisans nearby, having captured some of the Germans and their collaborators responsible for the church fire. They plead for their lives, blaming a fanatical and unapologetic Obersturmführer. Kosach suggests that one collaborator douse the others with petrol; he willingly does so, but the partisans shoot them all before they can be set on fire. As the partisans leave, Flyora notices a boy looking at a painting of Hitler in a puddle. When the boy leaves, Flyora repeatedly shoots the portrait; a montage of clips from Hitler's life plays in reverse, but when Hitler is shown as a baby on his mother 's lap, Flyora stops shooting and cries. A title card states, " 628 Belorussian villages were destroyed, along with all their inhabitants ". Flyora rushes to rejoin his comrades.

Following the death of their mother, Nawal, an Arab immigrant in Canada, Jeanne and her twin brother Simon meet with French Canadian notary Jean Lebel, their mother's employer and family friend. Nawal's will refers to not keeping a promise, denying her a proper gravestone and casket, unless Jeanne and Simon track down their mysterious brother, of whose existence they were previously unaware, and their father, who they believed was dead. Nawal has left two letters; one is to be delivered to Jeanne and Simon's father, and the other is to be delivered to their brother. Jeanne accepts; Simon, on the other hand, seemingly having had a more difficult relationship with Nawal and her unusual personality, is reluctant to join Jeanne on this pursuit. Nawal came from a Christian family in a Levantine country, and she fell in love with a refugee named Wahab, resulting in her pregnancy. Her family murders her lover and nearly shoots her in an honour killing, but her grandmother spares her, making her promise to leave the village after her baby's birth and start a new life in the city of Daresh. The grandmother tattoos the back of the baby's heel and sends him to an orphanage in Kfar Khout. While Nawal is at university in Daresh a few years later, civil war and war crimes break out, with Nawal opposing the war on human rights grounds. Her son's orphanage is destroyed by Muslim militants. Nawal leaves Daresh to try to find her son and boards a bus full of Muslim refugees. Christian Nationalists shoot the driver and fire into the bus full of passengers, only missing Nawal and a mother with her daughter. As the Nationalists prepare to set the bus on fire, the survivors try to escape towards the back of the bus. Nawal shows her crucifix and tells the Nationalists that she is Christian. She attempts to save the girl by claiming her as her own, but the girl runs towards the burning bus, calling for her mother, and is shot dead. Nawal finds her way back to town and joins the Muslim fighters. She tutors the son of a nationalist leader, eventually earning enough trust to smuggle in a gun to shoot the leader. She is imprisoned in Kfar Ryat and sings through the screams of other prisoners, earning her the nickname "The Woman Who Sings". To attempt to break her, she is raped by torturer Abou Tarek who leaves her saying, "sing now". She consequently gives birth to the twins. After traveling to her mother's native country, Jeanne gradually uncovers this past and persuades Simon to join her. With help from Lebel, they learn their brother's name is Nihad of May (the month he was born in) and track down Chamseddine, a local warlord. Simon meets with him and Chamseddine reveals that he attacked the orphanage in Kfar Khout, where he spares the children and converts Nihad into an Islamic child soldier. He then reveals the war-mad Nihad was captured by the nationalists, turned by them, trained as a torturer, and then sent to Kfar Ryat, where he took the name Abou Tarek, making him both the twins' maternal half-brother and father; as such, both letters are addressed to the same person. Like Nawal, Nihad's superiors gave him a new life in Canada after the war. By chance, Nawal encountered him at a Canadian swimming pool and saw both the tattoo and his face, realizing her long-lost son was her rapist all along. The shock of learning the truth caused Nawal to suffer a stroke, which led to her decline and untimely death at age 60. The twins find Nihad in Canada and deliver Nawal's letters to him. He opens both of them; the first letter addresses him as the twins' father, the rapist, and is filled with contempt. The second letter addresses him as the twins' brother and is instead written with caring words, saying that he, as Nawal's son, is deserving of love. Horrified at the truth, Nihad tries to chase after the twins, but they are gone. Nawal gets her gravestone. Sometime later, Nihad visits it.

Hidetora Ichimonji, a powerful but elderly warlord, decides to divide his kingdom among his three sons. Taro, the eldest, will receive the prestigious First Castle and become leader of the Ichimonji clan, though Hidetora will retain the title of Great Lord. Second and third sons Jiro and Saburo are to support Taro and will be given the Second and Third Castles. However, Saburo is exiled after criticizing his father's lecture about unity. Hidetora's retainer Tango is also exiled for defending Saburo. Taro's wife Lady Kaede urges him to take full control of the clan. When Taro demands Hidetora renounce his title, a furious Hidetora leaves and travels to Jiro's castle, only to discover that Jiro is only interested in using him as a pawn. As Hidetora and his retinue wander, he decides to take over the Third Castle, which had become deserted after Saburo's exile. Later, the Third Castle is attacked by Taro and Jiro's combined forces, and all of Hidetora's retinue are either killed or commit ritual suicide. Jiro's general Kurogane takes advantage of the confusion and shoots Taro dead with an arquebus. Hidetora succumbs to madness and is allowed to leave. Tango and court fool Kyoami, still loyal to Hidetora, accompany him as he wanders across the land, haunted by visions of the people he killed in the past. They take refuge in a peasant's home only to discover that the occupant is Tsurumaru, the brother of Lady Sue, Jiro's wife. Hidetora had blinded Tsurumaru after massacring his family and left him impoverished. With Taro dead, Jiro becomes the Great Lord of the Ichimonji clan, and moves into the First Castle. Lady Kaede seduces Jiro, and demands that he kill Lady Sue and marry her instead. Jiro orders Kurogane to do the deed, but he refuses, seeing through Kaede's perfidy. Kurogane then warns Sue and Tsurumaru to flee. Tango, learning that Jiro is considering sending assassins after Hidetora, rides off to alert Saburo. Saburo's army enters Jiro's territory to find Hidetora, forcing Jiro to hastily mobilize his army. A brief truce is reached and Saburo rides off after learning of Hidetora's whereabouts. Jiro breaks the truce and attacks Saburo's remaining forces, suffering significant losses, and is forced to retreat when informed that the armies of the neighbouring lords are marching on the First Castle. Saburo tracks down Hidetora, who has partially recovered his sanity, and the two reconcile. However, Saburo is shot and killed by one of Jiro's assassins. Overcome with grief, Hidetora dies on his son's body. Tsurumaru and Sue arrive at the ruins of the family castle. Sue leaves to retrieve the flute Tsurumaru has inadvertently left behind, giving him a picture of Amida Buddha for protection before she departs. She never returns. As the First Castle is besieged, Kurogane learns of Sue's death, and confronts Kaede. After confessing that her plot was revenge against the entire Ichimonji clan for massacring her family, Kaede is beheaded by Kurogane. Jiro, Kurogane and all Jiro's men subsequently die in battle. A funeral procession is held for Saburo and Hidetora. Meanwhile, left alone in the castle ruins, Tsurumaru trips, dropping the Amida Buddha image that Sue had given to him.