Akira Kurosawa directs this loose adaptation of Ed McBain's crime novel. Industrialist Kingo Gondo (Toshiro Mifune) faces a dilemma when a kidnapper snatches the son of his chauffeur by mistake: if he pays the ransom, he will not be able to take over the shoe company he works for, and will face ruin as a result. Meanwhile, police pursue the kidnapper (Tsutomu Yamazaki) through the waterfront bars and heroin dens he frequents.

This was Akira Kurosawa's first independent feature and for it he adapted an Ed McBain thriller, transposing the action to Japan. In this tale of revenge, Koichi Nishi (Toshiro Mifune) obtains a position as private scretary to Iwabuchi (Masayuki Mori), the government official he suspects killed his father. Nishi then marries Iwabuchi's daughter and plans a fitting retribution.