Engineer Okuyama, Tatsuya Nakadai, bears a face disfigured by an industrial accident and wears bandages to hide the burns. Isolated and estranged from his wife, Yoko Etsuko Ichihara, he seeks help from Dr. Hori Mikijiro Hira. The doctor proposes an experimental prosthetic mask to restore his sense of self, a choice made with quiet reluctance. The idea looms large: a device that could redefine who he is and how others see him.
To fund the project, Okuyama and the doctor recruit a man for 10,000 yen to model the mask, which is built and fitted to his face. The psychiatrist insists that Okuyama regularly report his sensations and thoughts, warning that the mask could alter his behavior and that he may cease to be the same person. Okuyama keeps the mask a secret, telling his wife he is traveling on business and moving into a nearby apartment. He tests the mask’s power on a secretary, Eiko Muramatsu, who doesn’t recognize him, and later on the apartment superintendent’s mentally challenged daughter, who does. The looming possibility of transformation hangs over every moment.
During a tense meeting, the psychiatrist realizes that Okuyama has already changed and imagines a world where the mask goes into mass production, erasing morality. The prospect is chilling: a society where appearances define reality and ethical boundaries blur beyond recognition. Okuyama, now inhabiting a new identity, begins to test the limits of his control and the consequences of his altered self.
Okuyama uses his new identity to seduce his wife; when she goes along with it too easily, he becomes enraged and reveals his true identity. She, in turn, says she had known his real self from the first moment he approached her. He tries to persuade her to give their relationship another chance, but she refuses, saying she cannot forgive his deception. Later, Okuyama attempts to rape a woman on the street and is arrested. He is freed thanks to his psychiatrist—who testifies that Okuyama is his patient and that he is not violent—and a police card found in Okuyama’s pocket supports the claim. As they wander the streets that night, they see others wearing masks. The psychiatrist asks for the mask back, but then changes his mind and lets Okuyama keep it, as he is now a free man. In a final, brutal moment, Okuyama stabs the psychiatrist to death.
Interwoven with this main thread is a separate tale drawn from Abe’s original novel: a young woman whose face bears a severe scar on the right cheek and neck. She works in a psychiatric ward and lives with her brother—the elder brother of the scarred girl Kakuya Saeki. The imagery and memory of war haunt her, suggesting that her scars may trace back to Nagasaki. The story follows the scars’ isolation and a forbidden attraction to her brother; on a seaside trip to a village inn, she dresses in white and walks into the ocean, possibly to end her life, while her brother watches in despair. The scarred girl, Miki Irie, stands at the center of this haunting, tragic strand that echoes the themes of disfigurement, vulnerability, and the fragility of human connection.
