In 1782, the Japanese ship Shinsho-maru , captained by Daikokuya Kodai (Ogata), with a crew of 16 sailors, was caught in a storm.

The sailors had to cut down the mast, and after a two hundred-day drift , the ship washed up on the Russian coast in the Aleutian Islands .

Together with Russian fur traders, they build a ship and successfully sail from the Aleutian Islands to the mainland.

In Irkutsk, Japanese sailors meet the Russian scientist and traveler, academician of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences Kirill Laksman, who takes an active part in their return to Japan.

Laxman brings Captain Daikokuya Kodai to St. Petersburg in the hope of obtaining an audience with Empress Catherine II.

On a Russian warship, only three Japanese sailors return to their homeland (two more wished to stay in Irkutsk, the rest died).