An idealistic youth Ryuji turns his back on his father, a kingpin in the violent underworld of the Yakuza, to serve his fellow man as a humble doctor in the Manchurian border region of China during the 1930s. A seemingly random act of bloody revenge starts a chain reaction and Ryuji is forced by circumstances to take control of the powerful Ohshima contracting company. As part of the succession process Ryuji has his back tattooed with the same design as that of his murdered father, who told him that the tattoo is the “symbol of a man.”