MASAYUKI and SACHIE meet one day and love grows between the two. They spend a night together in MASAYUKI's cheap apartment. This apartment is by a railway track, and the noise is deafening. Soon MASAYUKI moves to another apartment, and SACHIE once again meets with him, without hesitation.
UME, an old woman who owns the place, does not approve, but they spend tender moments together. Looking out of the window, they view the chimney of a crematory which looms as an omen to their ill-fated love.
A few days later, they return from an outing to find a middle-aged man sleeping in their room. The stranger, calls himself an insurance salesman, and becomes a parasite, saying that he is sick and cannot work. To free themselves from the judgemental landlady and the middle-aged man, they move to the apartment where OSAMU, MASAYUKI's friend, also lives in. It is there that SACHIE realizes she is pregnant. Suspicion gathers rapidly in MASAYUKI's mind, for he once witnessed SACHIE lying side by side with the middle-aged man when he came back from his work to his former apartment. "Whose baby is it?" The thought makes him abandon himself to despair and he starts to drink at a cheap pub with a big, red paper lantern hanging in front of the shop. SACHIE sadly watches him. She has a heart of gold, and she cannot criticize his behavior.
To change their situation, they move to CHOFU, a suburb of Tokyo, and the baby is born safely. However the manager of the their apartment, KUNIKO, who has lost her baby before, is sullen and treats them badly. News comes from her family, and SACHIE is shocked by the death of her grandmother in her hometown, and cannot endure any more hardship. They again move to the downtown area, where people are very kind. Surrounded by well-meaning people, they are happy again, but their happiness is short-lived. The room they moved into is one in which a family suicide took place earlier and it is too much for sensitive SACHIE. One day SACHIE becomes severely depressed, and sent to a mental hospital. MASAYUKI moves again, not with SACHIE this time but his newly born baby...

NOTES:
This film traces the life of a young couple who are forced by circumstances to keep moving from one place to another, in a large city as they face the difficulties of life. Their relationship comes to a tragic end because of their ordeals.
Young people had so much enthusiasms for political movements in the late 1960s to the begiming of the 1970s. Times have changed and people once again are beginning to appreciate the calmness of a stable existence. A folksong group "KAGUYA-HIME" became popular singing songs that reflect the attitudes of youth. The title of this film, "AKA-CHOCHIN," is taken from one of the KAGUYA-HIME's hit songs. AKA-CHOCHIN is a cheap saloon usually located near the railway stations or in the amusement quarters. Those saloons are commonly called AKA-CHOCHIN (red paper lantern) for the lanterns they hang in front of the saloon.
The solitude and complexity of self-destructive youth have been the director, FUJITA TOSHIYA's subject since he made his debut with "Crying for the Sun" (HIKO SHONEN: HINODE NO SAKEBI) 1967. His works had a very strong support of the young people in the 1970s. Also, in this film, FUJITA skillfully captures the atmosphere of the time and describes the destruction of a family and community ties, with a depiction of insanity and vagabondism.
The heroine, AKIYOSHI KUMIKO, became very popular among the youth of this era.