[1] It stars Tetsurō Tamba, Mako, Eiji Okada, and Shima Iwashita alongside English actors David Lampson and Don Kenny.

[2] The film's themes analyze the conflict of human nature versus divine requirements and their compatibility, life's purpose, the interplay of emotional needs, suffering, and contentment.

In the 17th century, two Portuguese Jesuit priests, Rodrigo and Garupe, travel to Japan to proselytize despite a formal ban on the practice or promotion of Christianity.

Nagasaki Magistrate Inoue's men capture Rodrigo and throw 300 pieces of silver at Kichijiro (reminiscent of Judas Iscariot).

Inoue says the Catholic Church is unwanted in Japan, comparing Rodrigo's faith to a concubine who makes trouble for a man's conscience.

Sawano turns out to be Ferreira, who has apostatized and is working under Inoue as an astronomy scholar, tasked with exposing errors and inconsistencies in the Bible and other Christian writings.

[3] Sawano mocks him, and notes that if Rodrigo sacrifices his faith for the sake of love,[4] the other three men will be spared and given medical treatment.

Later, a complacent Rodrigo is shown helping Inoue's officers to identify forbidden Christian objects being smuggled in by foreign ships.

He eventually becomes a samurai and is given Kiku as his wife; from that day forward, he is given her dead husband's name Sanemon Okada as Ferreira was given the title of Lord Sawano.