In a slum in Edo Japan, a ronin hopes that his deceased father's former master will hire him while a disgraced hairdresser attempts to regain his pride by kidnapping the daughter of a wealthy pawnbroker, who is set to be married.
Humanity and Paper Balloons is a 1937 Japanese jidaigeki tragedy film directed by Sadao Yamanaka. The film follows the lives of the members of a small tenement community who live under the shadow of the Tokugawa Shogunate. In order to cope with their impoverished circumstances, some turn to crime or suicide. It was Yamanaka's last film before his death.