It is 1948. Japan is rebuilding her cities after the calamity of World War Two, her people putting defeat behind them and looking to the future. The celebrated artist, Masuji Ono, fills his days attending to his garden, his house repairs, his two grown daughters and his grandson; his evenings drinking with old associates in quiet lantern-lit bars. His should be a tranquil retirement. But as his memories continually return to the past - to a life and career deeply touched by the rise of Japane...

Etsuko lives alone in rural England, trying to come to terms with the recent suicide of her daughter. A visit from her other daughter Niki sends Etsuko retreating into the depths of her memory. She finds herself reliving one particular summer in Nagasaki, when she and her friends struggled to rebuild their lives after the horrors of World War Two.