Sang-hoon is a lowlife gangster, a debt collector exercising thuggish ways to collect his money. The recipient of nothing but anger since his childhood, he expresses himself through violence. When he finally encounters someone who can stand up to him, feisty school-girl Yoon-hee they become unlikely friends.
An overeducated, disenchanted woman, Ja-young, loses her ambition after many gruelling years of studying for the public official exam. One lonely evening, a beautiful, fit runner, Hyun-joo, glides smoothly past her. Intrigued by this celestial vision of harmony and grace, Ja-young repeatedly returns, hoping to meet the object of her curiosity.
Middle-aged women start acting and launch a drama club. However, nothing big or small goes right. But they never give up the play.
A gay man and a lesbian get married to hide their sexuality. They juggle their secret identities, fool friends and family, and search for true love.
The populace of a South Korean island rebels against police brutality. The protesters are labeled as communists, and the army is dispatched.
Jeong-eun is dispatched to a subcontracting company. She tries to fit in, but her co-workers aren't comfortable around her and she's completely new to field work. Despite all that, she wants to stay on for a year and then return to headquarters, no matter what. Thanks to a newbie's help, she slowly adjusts to her new workplace.
What happened in Korean society in the 1990s? The film starts with the Jijon-pa (Supreme Gangsters) case. The shocking story is narrated through the discussion by the two detectives who arrested the gangsters, of details of the roundup, data screens, and the death sentence. Nevertheless, Nonfiction Diary’s focus is not on the crime story. Starting from Jijon-pa onwards, the film reflects on the 1990s, when Korea digressed into contemporary history. The Seongsu Bridge and the Sampoong Department Store’s collapses are recalled, followed by the then-government’s punishment of the May 18 Uprising leaders, revealing the Korean legal system’s death penalty status, touching on political and power issues. The audience is reminded that today, 2013, is an extension of that same flow.
At her dad's funeral, Kyungun meets her uncle Jaemin, a complete stranger. He bilks her father's insurance money. She demands her money back, but he unashamedly refuses. To get her money back, she joins his next scam.
Yeong-ha is a teenager living with her mother who has recently remarried. After the high school exam, Yeong-ha is home together with her step-father and encounters something unexpected. After thinking it over, she decides to tell her mother what happened.
A man suffers from mental illness after having lived with a mother suffering from dementia and a brother addicted to gambling. Now institutionalized, he falls in love with a nurse at the psychiatric hospital.
Hyuk-jin has just broken up with his girlfriend and decides to take a trip to Jeongseon in the province of Gangwon-do. The next day, his friends are too hung over to get up, so Hyuk-jin makes his way to his destination alone. A trip of opportunity takes a cruel and unexpected turn as misunderstanding and crossed paths occur over and over again.
With just one punch, a foreign merchant named Ronny (Mahbub Alam) knocks out In-Ho (Yu Jun-Sang) during one of his Taekwondo training classes. In-Ho then goes to find Ronny to recover his dignity. However, what comes next is separation from his wife and being imprisoned..
Commissioned by South Korea's National Human Rights Commission, If You Were Me is an innovative omnibus film project to promote tolerance and human rights and shed light on the hardships disadvantaged people face in Korea. This third installment continues the If You Were Me tradition. Directors Jeong Yun Cheol (Marathon), Kim Hyeon Pil (Wonderful Day), Lee Mi Yeon (L'Abri), Noh Dong Seok (Boys of Tomorrow), Hong Gi Seon (The Road Taken), and Kim Gok and Kim Sun (Capitalist Manifesto: Working Men of All Countries) participated in If You Were Me 3, creating shorts on human rights issues of their choosing, ranging from labor conditions to gay rights to discrimination.
North Korean defector Seung-chul is a refugee living on the harsh edges of Seoul. Bewildered by exploitative employers and cynical urbanites, he’s no good for business. A powerful realism underscores this prize-winning feature debut about the struggle to survive in a strange new world.
An old man living on the island of Mireukdo lives a self-sufficient life, adhering to ascetic principles typical of a monk. Now and then the phone rings and shortly thereafter a visitor arrives; the old man dutifully prepares rice cakes for them. The cakes are the last meal these visitors will eat before embarking on the seemingly long journey to the next world. The first to arrive is an angler, then a rat, and the last a teacher and two students.
Bori, an 11-year-old girl in a seaside village, is the only family member who can hear. As an elementary school student, Bori becomes more and more accustomed to talking with her friends while finding it hard to communicate with her family in sign language.
In this omnibus film series produced by the National Human Rights Commission, Park Jungbum explores relating to the handicapped, Lee Sangcheol and Shin Aga turn their camera on the elderly and Min Youngkeun looks at conscientious objection to military service. In Dear Duhan, Duhan suffers from brain lesions. His friend has always felt bad for Duhan but nonetheless steals an iPad from him one day. Director Park explores the conflict and friendship between a so-called normal and a handicapped person. In Bong-gu on Delivery Shin and Lee tell the tale of an old man who helps a child find his way home, only to be accused of kidnapping. And Min talks about a Jehovah’s Witness who has just been drafted and must say goodbye to his mother in Ice River, a melodrama about a man who chooses to go to prison for his conscientious and religious objections to bearing arms. Having divorced her husband in order not to send her son to prison, his mother cannot accept her son’s choice.
I-na has been putting aside music to handle her tough life; her mentally unstable mother and her baby who is placed with a foster family. One day, she runs into her old friend whom she used to do music with. Being aware of how talented she is, he suggests Ina to participate in 'Berlin Calling' that will give her chance to be a DJ in Berlin.
In Jeju Province, located off the southern coast of Korea, are the women of the sea, those who hold breath for life. These women still exist and they still dive the old way, without tanks. They go into the waters of 10- to 20-meter depth to harvest seaweed and shellfish to make a living. They make a living in the same sea, but each haenyeo’s sea of life is different. The community is divided into three tiers- Group A, B and C, based on skills and capabilities. One’s rank is determined by sum or breath. Sum, is pre-determined at birth. Therefore, sum is desired. However, the ocean is harsh. May you desire! But seek what is not yours, the ocean will devour you. Life, for these women of the sea, is about holding one’s breath, and containing and controlling one’s desire. The film is a six year record of the lives of the haenyeos in Udo, an islet in the province of Jeju, known to be the birthplace of haenyeo. It is a close look into the lives that stand on the boundary of life and death.
O-bok’s eldest daughter is about to get married to an educated, well-off young man, but she’s far from happy. It’s not just hot weather, hot flushes, her daughters’ materialism, her mother’s dementia, her husband’s drinking, or the impending gentrification of the food market where she sells fish – although all of that will push her to take a stand. After trying to cover it up, O-bok reveals to her daughter that she was raped by a fellow stallholder, the man organising the traders against their landlords. Increasingly furious, O-bok eschews the useless police to pursue her own justice, even if it means a physical fight.
