Gang-Jae, a third-rate hoodlum with a tender heart, has a hard time intimidating debtors and sometimes even gets beaten up by younger hoodlums. One day he hears the news that Failan, a woman from China whom he married fraudulently, has died. Gang-Jae goes on a trip to find out more about this woman, who was an illegal alien living on the periphery of society. She thanked Gang-Jae for the marriage and secretly loved him. The trip gives him a sense of renewal and salvation, but he is unable to escape his tragic fate. Failan succeeds in elevating the level of the ′gangster′ genre by realistically depicting the lives of the lower-class hoodlums. The film also succeeds in avoiding the cliche solutions abundant in the genre of melodrama. (Joo You-Shin)