The story is based on the historical practice, due to U.S. anti-miscegenation laws, of Japanese immigrant laborers in the United States using long-distance matchmakers in their homelands to find wives.

[6] In 1918, Riyo is a young Japanese woman who becomes a picture bride for a man who works as a field hand on a sugarcane plantation in Hawaii.

As she walks past the darkened fields to their home, Riyo hears a faint sound on the wind of a woman singing.

She is unfamiliar with farm work and slows the other workers down, leading her to be harassed and ridiculed by Antone, the luna (field supervisor).

Yayoi, who leads the women workers, prompts Kana, another picture bride who arrived several years before, to mentor Riyo.

Kana advises Matsuji to become romantic and to take Rudolf Valentino as a role model to win Riyo's heart.

One day, he has the workers set fire to the cane fields to burn off the leaves for harvesting, but in a hurry to get the job done, he does not let the women locate their children first.

As they sit under a tree, Riyo discloses that when she was a child, both of her parents died of tuberculosis, which at that time carried tremendous social stigma.

Of course, those early generations suffered much, but somehow the films are suffused with a certain serenity, because after all, the stories had a happy ending: They produced the children and grandchildren who are telling the tales.

"[10] Alison Macor of the Austin Chronicle said "Picture Bride deservedly won this year's Audience Award at the Sundance Film Festival", as "director Hatta's first feature skillfully blends humor with the day-to-day drama of living in a land that is not one's own".

[11] Macor ended her review by saying, "although this is a small film in that it profiles an individual's drama rather than the human condition, Picture Bride does so with tremendous warmth and respect for its characters".

[11] In 2004, Miramax released a DVD which includes "The Picture Bride Journey", a documentary on the making of the film featuring the director, cast members, archival historical footage, and behind-the-scenes clips from the movie set.