Tiger Motors launches a calculated covert operation against rival company Yamato Motors after a public scare about their latest car model. In this tense tug-of-war, the planning minds at Tiger set a dangerous plan in motion: they enlist Yutaka Asahina to have his girlfriend, Masako Usami, entertain Mawatari, the head of Yamato’s planning department and a former Manchukuo Army figure, in order to extract details about Yamato’s new car.
When the initial data Tiger gathers proves elusive, Toru Onoda, the head of Tiger’s planning department, pushes Yamato’s design gatekeepers to disclose the exact specifications of Yamato’s model. He makes a stark threat to the company’s public image and financial interests by suggesting a police reveal of a supposed kickback, nudging Yamato toward cooperation. In response, Kazuo Mori, the chief of Yamato’s design, reluctantly agrees to provide the specifications for Yamato’s upcoming model, codenamed the Mypet. To Tiger’s shock, the Mypet bears a notable resemblance to Yamato’s own Pioneer design, prompting director Kihachi Oguri to order Tiger to press ahead with production of more Pioneer-inspired cars.
With the help of an interpreter and Masako, Tiger discovers the price tag of Yamato’s Mypet and decides to price their own Pioneer at 990,000 yen. The entanglement deepens as the strategy to win leads to personal strain: the ruse involving Masako strains Yutaka Asahina and Masako’s relationship, eventually driving her to leave him.
In parallel, a growing suspicion about Yamato’s spy network emerges. Onoda, who has long suspected Oguri’s nephew, Tatsuro Shimamoto, is a traitor, and along with Asahina, interrogates him at his home. The investigation uncovers a deeper linkage: Hiraki, the son of one of Tiger’s founders, Kimio Hiraki, has been secretly aiding Yamato as a spy. Hiraki confesses that he was coerced into helping Yamato after Mawatari and the Yamato operative Matoba Syumatsu threatened to reveal his affair with Katsuko, a Yamato collaborator, including the nurse’s covert surveillance of the Tiger president’s hospital room and the bugging of the president’s private life. Hiraki’s confession is secretly recorded by Onoda’s team, and the revelation pushes him to take his own life.
The moral compass of Tiger’s leadership is shaken; disgust with Onoda’s aggressive tactics leads to Asahina’s resignation. Yet the business side moves on: Pioneer sales climb, and both Mawatari and Yamato restructure their ranks—Mawatari resigns from Yamato, while Asahina, having reconciled with Masako, begins working at a small neighborhood store. In the end, a passing Pioneer prompts Masako to remark on its beauty, while Asahina responds with a practical, unromantic truth: “it’s dirty and black as pitch.”
Throughout, the film threads a tense web of corporate ambition, loyalty, and the personal costs of espionage, presenting a world where every negotiation, every rendezvous, and every overheard confession can shift the balance between two rival giants.
