Schmid’s impassioned tribute to Kabuki theater, the time-honored Japanese art of stylized drama punctuated with singing and dancing, documents an important art form that is beginning to disappear. The film features one of Kabuki’s most respected practitioners, Tamasaburo Bando, who first appeared on stage at the age of five. One of Kabuki’s finest Onnagata—men who specialize in playing female roles—Bando is seen in four continuous acts. "The man playing the woman’s role," says Schmid, "does not imitate the woman as in the West, but tries to capture her significance, [which] he draws from his own identity."