Still a child in a poor fishing village, Sayuri is sold into slavery to a Kyoto geisha house. As she grows, she is groomed to become a geisha and is soon visiting teahouses dressed in fine kimonos and competing with a jealous rival.

She falls in love, but when it is time for her virginity to be auctioned, it is another man who bids the highest. Although she is a popular geisha, when war breaks out and the geisha houses are forced to close, she has little money.