[1][2] It is based on the prize-winning novella Shiiku (translated as The Catch or Prize Stock) by Kenzaburō Ōe.

The villagers capture the surviving black pilot and lock him in a stable, awaiting official instructions how to proceed with their prisoner.

Takano, the domineering and abusive local landlord, uses the villagers' anger and frustrations, which they blame on the captive, to turn the attention away from his own misdeeds and eventually kills him.

The community decides to make deserter Jirō, who had been hiding in the woods to escape his draft, responsible for the incident.

[9] Ōe's novella was again adapted in 2011 as Gibier d'élevage by director Rithy Panh, who transferred the setting to early 1970s Cambodia.