In Los Angeles at the turn of the 1970s, drug-fueled detective Larry "Doc" Sportello investigates the disappearance of an ex-girlfriend.

In the years before World War II, a penniless Japanese child is torn from her family to work as a maid in a geisha house.

The pain of the past becomes the reality of the present on the morning of September 12th, 2001 for second-generation Japanese-American George Kojima. Witnessing a government backlash to 9/11 that parallels his own experiences during the Second World War as a young man, George must question his trust and faith in the United States which he has spent his life fighting to preserve.