This masterpiece is also Yu Hyun-mok′s breakthrough film. Through a struggling family living a destitute life, he reveals the difficulties of postwar Korean society. Such is the piercing scream emitted from desperate souls with no way out: accountant clerk Chul-Ho and his disabled veteran brother Young-Ho; a homesick mother who′s at the brink of going mad, Chul-Ho′s pregnant wife and his sister who turns tricks on foreigners for living. Each one tries to cope with the harsh reality thrust upon them only to fail, losing their direction in the process. The day Young-Ho′s bank robbery fails, Chul-Ho takes out his tooth and wanders around, unable to choose between the obstetrician where his pregnant wife is, the police station where his arrested brother is being held, or home where his sick mother is ailing. The realism-based An Aimless Bullet exposes reality by using a modernistic approach to express the family′s hopelessness. Rather than using an active, direct method for his commentary on reality, Yu Hyun-Mok criticizes it in an existentialist, roundabout way. (Yi Hyoin)