
In a crumbling, seaside hotel on the coast of Japan, quiet, seventeen-year-old Mari works the front desk as her mother fusses over the off-season customers. When, one night, they are forced to eject a prostitute & a middle-aged man from his room, Mari finds herself drawn to the man's voice, in what will become the first gesture of a long seduction. The mysterious man lives quietly as a translator on an island off the coast. A widower, there are murmurs around town that he may have murdered his wife. Mari begins to visit him, but as he initiates her into a dark realm of both pain & pleasure, she finds herself also attracted to his earnest young nephew. As Mari's mother & the police begin to close in on the illicit affair, events move to a dramatic climax.