The title translates as "the pimp," designating the character who serves as our guide through Imamura's satiric vision of Japanese expansionism. Ken Ogata plays a Japanese hairdresser in Hong Kong at the turn of the twentieth century who ends up a spy in Manchuria for the Japanese government. Seeing the writing on the wall, he turns his entrepreneurial skills from espionage towards establishing a string of brothels in Southeast Asia, figuring that once the Japanese armies invade, he'll make a fortune.