Película compuesta de ocho cortometrajes de veinte minutos cada uno. Son ensoñaciones dispersas, independientes, pero engarzadas entre sí por deseos, angustias y añoranzas. La historia de Yo, desde su infancia hasta su vejez, sirve para mostrar las relaciones del hombre con el mundo, el arte, la espiritualidad, la muerte. Los ocho relatos (extraídos de sueños de Kurosawa) reflejan lo cambios experimentados por Japón a lo largo de un siglo.
Uta married a priest who saved her when she tried to commit suicide at a waterfall. The love triangle between a lustful priest, his second wife and his son Masao.
Ayame, a courtesan, attracts the attention of street vendor Kisuke and decides to run away with him to America. Unfortunately, a crazed tattoo artist is obsessed with Ayame's perfect skin as a potential canvas, so he kills Kisuke to keep Ayame in Japan. Later, Ayame is sold to a brothel in Yokohama. Kisuke's ghost possesses her, causing his image to appear tattoo-like on her skin whenever she has sex.
In a rural village with a poorly understood but long standing curse from the Dog God, outsiders from a major Tokyo mining corporation scouting for uranium destroy a small shrine and crush a dog under their jeep wheels. After one of the mining company employees marries the daughter of a prominent member of the village, the Dog God’s wrath boils over and people start to die. The village girl and mining company employee start a new life in Tokyo, but the Dog God possesses her and she is deemed mentally ill. The couple returns to the village to perform an exorcism, but it is unsuccessful. As the body count accumulates, the cause of and remedy for the curse becomes more opaque.
