[2][3] During the annual religious festivities at Mount Osore, widow Kikuno joins a medium to contact the spirit of her deceased daughter Ayako and ask her for forgiveness.
The film switches back to 20 years earlier when in 1937, Ayako, a poor fisherman's daughter from Ōma, is sold to a brothel as her ill father can't support the family anymore.
Kanichi, a new customer, reveals himself as Kanjiro's older brother, who insists that the rumours surrounding Ayako are pure superstition.
Ayako and Kanichi become lovers, but before his plan to go to Tokyo together is realised, he is killed by an army truck driver who refuses to stop for him.
When the brothel's owners demand her leaving the house because she might be possessed by an evil spirit, Ayako, out of desperation, agrees to have an exorcism performed on her.