An arms smuggler organization uses a pirate television station to spread dissention among representatives in an international conference in Portugal. A French diplomat travels to Macao, hoping to locate a sexy spy who had stayed in Lisbon.

Nineteen-year-old Julio heads to Lisbon from the provinces and gets a job as a shoemaker for his uncle Raul. But when he meets Ilda, a confident young housemaid who becomes a regular shop visitor, his working-class values collide with the bourgeois trappings of modern life.