The shabby and desperate daily lives of three families unfold against the backdrop of Haebangchon village, where people from North Korea who have crossed the border to the South live together. Their hopefulness is buried by the indignity of hard, low-wage labor, as they struggle through, living day by day. Kim Duk-sam, a widower, urges his son to get a job on the US army base. Bok-soon’s mother teaches her daughter ‘Shingosan’, a traditional Korean ballad, every night so that Bok-soon can find a job as a barmaid. However, their children do not intend to follow their parents’ wishes. Meanwhile, the young head of a family is about to break his back taking care of his elderly mother, his sick wife and crippled young daughter. Despite all their desperate efforts, life never seems to improve for any of these characters. The film is dark and realistic, much like the classic [Aimless Bullet]. The film finds hope in ceding the position of its main subject to the young generation, after propelling their conflicts with the older generation to the verge of explosion. At the last moment, by saying “We fathers live in this way(with stupidity), but you guys proceed forward,” fathers reconcile with their children, a point of view reflecting the policy of modernization in the 1960s. This is a masterpiece in the early career of Kim Soo-yong, vividly embodying the conflict between generations of lower class people in the 1960s, performed by all the big movie stars of the time. (KANG Sowon)