In 1975, Noboru Tanaka was acclaimed in Japan for his A Woman Named Abe Sada — the same story Nagasi Oshima used as the basis for In the Realm of the Senses (shown in the 1977 Festival). This film continues Tanaka's exploration of sexuality and eroticism.

Goda is a voyeur. Hiding in the attic of a boarding house, he drills holes in order to watch the activities in the apartments below him.

The sexual encounters Goda spies upon are all hidden and furtive. Respectable citizens from various walks of life indulge their secret fantasies. Lady Minako hires a clown for her pleasure; Endo waives his devout Christian principles to seduce a maid. A woman painter, Miyuki, paints her surrealist landscapes not on canvas, but on a model's body.

Goda's desires turn from voyeurism to murder, and he devises elaborate means of killing those he has observed. But before he can put his schemes into practice, fate intervenes.