When Yuka was a child, her mother always favored Yuka’s sickly older sister Mayu. Today, Yuka is the successful proprietor of a flower shop, but she is still consumed by jealousy. When Mayu marries a kindly policeman named Keita, Yuka concocts a vengeful plan to seduce him.

Penance takes a mordantly playful turn with Episode 4, in which sibling rivalry is taken to vindictive extremes. Stringing a tightrope between comedy and tragedy, Kurosawa shows off his tonal dexterity with a wickedly funny change of pace from the preceding explorations of bottled-up gloom.