Kagero-za

Matsuzaki, a Shinpa playwright in 1926 Tokyo, meets a beautiful married woman whose name he does not know. This chance encounter begins a dangerous, intimate connection that challenges his sense of morality. The meeting hints at a web of secrets surrounding wealth, marriage, and desire.

After two more chance encounters, they spend the night together. Matsuzaki soon learns that the room she uses belongs to Shinako, the wife of his patron Baron Tamawaki. The revelation ties their liaison to the powerful social circle around Tamawaki.

Matsuzaki discovers that Tamawaki has two wives, complicating loyalties and desires. He learns Irene, a German woman, became Ine after dyeing her hair black, and Shinako is Tamawaki's second wife, chosen for wealth. The backstory underscores the cost of status and control.

Matsuzaki meets Ine on the stairs in front of the hospital and speaks with her. The exchange reveals the hidden life of Tamawaki's household and its consequences for Irene/Ine. The moment foreshadows the tragedy looming over their world.

Ine is said to have taken her last breath in her hospital room. Her death intensifies the sense of loss and the costs borne by those entangled with Tamawaki. Matsuzaki remains unaware of Shinako's deeper motives at this point.

Matsuzaki receives a letter from Shinako saying she will wait for him in Kanazawa. The invitation promises a painful test of love, loyalty, and personal risk. He resolves to hurry toward the city to meet her.

Matsuzaki hurries to Kanazawa to meet Shinako, aware that their fourth rendezvous would be life-risking. The journey heightens the tension between desire and duty. He approaches the promised meeting with a mix of fear and longing.

Tamawaki also heads to Kanazawa and urges Matsuzaki to commit suicide with Shinako. This coercive move reveals the brutal pressures of his control and the deadly stakes of their affair. The city becomes a stage for manipulation and desperation.

Matsuzaki escapes and arrives at the strange theater called Kageroza. Shinako and Iwaki follow him into the venue, drawn by the spiraling tension between lovers and fate. The location shifts the drama from private rooms to a public, folkloric space.

Children perform on stage as the play about monsters unfolds, suddenly becoming Irene's story of torment for being a wife kept in the shadows. Shinako also appears on stage to express resentment at being a second wife and to reveal her own revenge on Matsuzaki. The performance collapses the line between fiction and reality.

The Kagerouza theatre collapses, and villagers cry out that a body has been found in the pond after a double suicide. The victims are Iwaki and Shinako, though Matsuzaki believes Shinako may still be alive. The disaster deepens the mystery surrounding their fates.

As festival music reverberates, Matsuzaki finds Shinako in a mysterious room, suggesting a liminal space between life and memory. He bows to his real-world self, and they sit back-to-back, symbolizing a reconciliation of identities. The ending ties together the theater's fiction with Matsuzaki's reality.