[1][2][3] Tatsu (Hayakawa) lives within the mountains of Hakawa, Japan, creating a series of paintings and disposing of them upon completion, shouting to the gods to return his fiancée, a princess who he believed was turned into a dragon.

Meanwhile, in Tokyo, Kano Indara (Peil, Sr.), a famous painter, seeks a protege and heir to continue the family bloodline of master paintings.

Amazed at the artwork, Uchida invites Tatsu to Tokyo, claiming that Indara knows the whereabouts of the lost princess.

Tatsu is about to leave when Indara presents a dance by the lost princess, who he explains is in the form of his only daughter, Ume-ko (Aoki).

Tatsu's sorrow continues to grow as time passes until one day he sees what appears to be Ume-ko's ghost at the family garden, which motivates him to paint once more.

"[4] He further wrote "Playing the role of Ume-ko, Aoki provides a sense of authenticity to the stereotypical self-sacrificing Japanese woman like Cio-Cio-San.

According to New York Times review of a Hayakawa retrospective: "The film is a kind of visually sophisticated fairy tale, with tinting (best is the moonlit blue of the night scenes) and neatly composed interiors and silhouettes.

Set in Japan with Japanese characters, The Dragon Painter, though written by an American, seems like a relic from a parallel Hollywood: one without the cultural and sexual fetishism that often characterized its forays into the exotic.

"[8] A 35mm print was discovered in France and was restored by the American Film Institute with the George Eastman House and the Museum of Modern Art in 1988.

[9] In 2014, The Dragon Painter was deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry.