Kyoto, 10th century. The capital suffers under repeated outbreaks of plague. Corpses fill the gutters and the dead number in the tens of thousands. Children are left behind in the mountains, and packs of wild dogs keep watch beyond the city limits. Katabuchi's feature film sets aside the refined image of the Heian period familiar from literature and art, and returns instead to the Kyoto of ten centuries past, a city sunk in darkness and disease.