Histoire du Japon racontée par une hôtesse de bar
(Nippon Sengoshi - Madamu onboro no Seikatsu )

This film is an Imamura investigation on the life of a prostitute and barmaid, Emiko Akaza, known as Madame Onboro, who ran a bar in Yokosuka, near Tokyo, where since the war, a major U.S. naval center of operations is based. Her personal story interfers with news footage of major events of recent Japanese history – strikes and violent protests in the early fifties, railway sabotage, the assassination of the Socialist Party leader, radical political movements against the security treaty between Japan and the USA, etc.