The old story repeats itself, in another time, and another place. End of the 1970s, at La Guaira seaport, a strapping sixteen-year old Carmen is the girl that attract all males' eyes. Female rivalries and hot tempers leads her into a fight with an older woman smuggler, La Perícia, at the municipal market. Carmen cuts the other woman's face. José Navarro, sergeant of Guardia Nacional on duty, arrests her, and takes her in a truck to the police station. The way is short, but the time of touching his face with a blossoming red rose, José is love with Carmen. For her, he will betray his uniform, he will lose his grade, and he will even kill, becoming the leader of her gang of smugglers. Félix Reverte, a young and daring bullfighter, comes to town where he will perform his art of killing the bull in the arena, soon; he too, becomes madly in love with Carmen, and the girl becomes obsessed with his courtship, rejecting her older lover. The day of the bullfight, when Carmen approaches the arena to watch Reverte's bullfighting, José can't stand it anymore, they fight, and he stabs her to death.