Yang Seong-won

Beginning with the suicide of a film director, this work represents the Korean New Wave Cinema movement that focused on criticizing the Korean society in the 1980s through satire and humor. The journey taken by the characters, who lead low lives at the margins of the society, award them with a sense of liberation, however brief.

Oh Ka-hi is a popular madam in a nightclub in Mu-gyo-dong street. She supported her widowed mother and sister by working in a factory. Ka-hi and Tae-su, an honest boy, were in love. Then Dal-su, an animal of a man, raped her. With that, Ka-hi went from working at a bar to becoming a hostess at a cabaret. Ka-hi meets Hyun-wu and gets pregnant by him. She gives birth to Suk but learns too late that Hyun-wu is a married man. Dal-su persistently hounds her. He steals her bank account and takes the money she had earned with her tears and blood. To be worse, Suk dies from gas intoxication. Ka-hi falls into despair. Duk-sam, a driver, takes care of her. Ka-hi slowly rises from her nightmarish reality. In the end, she accepts Duk-sam's marriage proposal.