The film tells the story of Chiyo Sakamoto, a poor Japanese girl who has been sold along with her older sister Satsu into a life of servitude by her parents. Chiyo is taken in by the proprietress of a geisha house, Mother (Kaori Momoi), but Satsu is rejected and is sold to another house in the "pleasure district" of the Hanamachi. At the okiya, she meets another young girl named Pumpkin (Youki Kudoh), and also has numerous unpleasant run-ins with the okiya's senior geisha Hatsumomo (Gong Li).