On the Philippines at the end of World War II: the Japanese army is in hasty retreat from the incoming American forces. The situation is bad enough, supplies are already short, but the soldiers have also been warned that the Americans will take no live prisoners and so their flight is all the more desperate. Suffering from a severe case of tuberculosis, Soldier Tamura is unfit for duty. But the Japanese field hospitals have no beds for a man destined to die soon of consumption, so he is doomed to wander the jungles as his fellow soldiers sink deeper into hunger, disease, and madness. His journey reaches a shocking conclusion when he encounters a band of soldiers who have resorted to cannibalism in order to survive.