Growing up on a Hawaiian sugar cane plantation, Sam Hamada is schooled in the martial arts and the traditional culture of his native Japan. While learning to become a man, he has an affair with Yuriko, the Japanese mistress of the plantation foreman. Caught in bed and fighting for his life, Sam causes the foreman to accidentally shoot himself, setting in motion a series of events that will change his life forever.

When forced to move to California, Sam meets Keiko Yanagi, the love of his life. Torn between duty to Yuriko (the woman he believes to be the mother of his child) and passion for Keiko (the woman he knows he is meant to be with) Sam struggles for a way out.

Thinking she has lost Sam forever, Keiko returns to Japan, heartbroken, where her parents begin to arrange a marriage. After two unsuccessful marriage meetings, Keiko travels alone to Tokyo where she discovers Yuriko with a Eurasian baby, one that Sam could not have fathered.