A woman and her bridegroom are found murdered in their bed the day after their wedding. It had snowed overnight and the killer left no tracks. It is up to an amateur detective to figure out what happened. Carefully and systematically, he pieces together the clues in this locked room mystery.
Three men sentenced to death are spared and changed into “shadows executioners”, a group of ruthless ninja working for mysterious high ranking officials. During their investigation on some illegal business, one of them, called “Yazuke the Viper”, finds his abandoned daughter, Ocho, who has now become a mistress of Denzo, a smuggler. After Yazuke’s death, Ocho is also recruited as a “shadows executioner”, with the task of completing her father’s mission.
The story takes place during the end of the Pacific War and the aftermath period and it focuses on Mizoguchi, who is the son of a Buddhist Priest. When his father dies, he’s sent to the Temple of the Golden Pavilion in Kyoto. Mizoguchi is physically unattractive and becomes, in some way, jealous of the beautiful Temple that he loves so much.
Kodaira Mochizuki has come from Edo to keep Horisoto secure.
A cowardly samurai is sent as an official executioner targeting the clan's former sword instructor, a man whose sword and spear skills are second to none.
Okatsu is a widow raising five children - adults but still mama-dependent - in mid-eighteenth century Edo, Japan. Her frugality attracts unflattering comment even amid national tough times (the region is in famine) What Okatsu tells no one is that she saves so that a friend can start his own business once he's released from prison.
A re-make of the classic story made for television in 1982.
