The film opens on a woodcutter (; ''Kikori'', played by Takashi Shimura) and a priest (; ''Tabi Hōshi'', Minoru Chiaki) sitting beneath the Rajōmon to stay dry in a downpour. A commoner (Kichijiro Ueda) joins them and they tell him that they have witnessed a disturbing story, which they then begin recounting to him. The woodcutter claims he found the body of a murdered samurai three days earlier while looking for wood in the forest; upon discovering the body, he says, he fled in a panic to notify the authorities. The priest says that he saw the samurai with his wife traveling the same day the murder happened. Both men are then summoned to testify in court, where they meet the captured bandit Tajōmaru (), who claims to have set the samurai free after encountering him in the forest.