With the memory of WW II still fresh in Japan in1960, the atmosphere is unsettled as the specter of renewed world nuclear conflict is once again in the air. When a US military aircraft carrying a nuclear weapon inexplicably explodes over a river crossing the line of demarcation between South and North Korea during South Korean military exercises in the area, tension between Cold War antagonists rise to new heights, involving Japan directly because of the American military bases they host. As accusations of blame are traded back and forth, the movie tracks the increasingly volatile situation through the eyes of a group of Japanese high school students and their families, a newspaper reporter and his idealistic nurse girlfriend, and a Christian troubadour and his invalid wife.
