Team DANKAI are a group of drivers set to compete in the Paris-Dakar Rally, an off-road endurance race spanning thousands of miles and multiple continents. Prior to the event, team leader Mizuki (Nenji Kobayashi) is ordered by their sponsor to add popular celebrity Ryuichi Yoshii (Goro Ohashi) to the roster for publicity. This exacerbates DANKAI's resentments and baggage. Needing a steady hand to mediate dispute and navigate their support vehicle, Mizuki recruits legendary, retired mechanic and driver Eiji Honma (Ken Takakura) to the team. Honma soon discovers his ex-wife Kei (Ayumi Ishida) is also participating in the rally, alongside her current husband, the bullfighter Juan Vázquez (Tomas Arana). He is also accompanied by Yuko Takei (Junko Sakurada), a singer who followed Yoshii from Japan.
Two Japanese scientists, Ushioda and Ochi, develop a bond with their sled dogs while on an expedition in Antarctica.
The story of Shinsuke, a young man who lives through a stormy life as a poverty-stricken coal miner. Ranging from Shinsuke's infanthood to his mid-teens. Coal workers and the mines dominate nearly every aspect of his life. Shinsuke's father a group leader at the mine, dies while bravely using dynamite to rescue a group of trapped Korean miners. Several older men attempt to help he and his mother cope, including a friendly Harley-riding yakuza boss. This movie has it all, drama, romance, sex, yakuza and violence! It is based on a story by Hiroyuki Itsuki that was originally serialized in the magazine Shukan Gendai in 1969-70.
The Japanese government decides to install a radar on the top of Mt. Fuji, in order to detect typhoons as far as 800 km south of the Japanese archipelago, but the task will not be easy.
A Japanese racing driver for Nissan named Godai (Yujiro Ishihara) have a rivalry with a French driver named Pierre (Jean-Claude Drouot). Godai is enlisted to race in an annual endurance race, The East African Safari Rally. Peripheral to this is the story concerning Godai's former lover Yuko (Ruriko Asaoka), a fashion designer, and her friend Anna (Emmanuel Riva), who happens to be Pierre's wife.