His younger brother (Choi Moo-ryong), meanwhile, is an idealist who has fallen in love with a yanggongju (a ‘western princess’ – a female sex worker who primarily serves foreign soldiers, played by Kim Ji-mi). Living next to them is the breadwinner of a family of four (Shin Young-kyun), who, though his job as a litter picker barely gives him enough to live on, must support his ailing wife, elderly mother and disabled daughter. The film follows an indigent widower (Kim Seong-ho) who gets by working as a housing agent, and his son (Shin Seong-il), who uses every trick in the book to earn some extra cash. Hyeolmaek is set in a divided Korea and unfolds in Haebangchon (Liberation Village) in Seoul, where many of those displaced from North Korea have settled. It paved the way for his later realistic works reflecting the impoverished lives of Korea’s lower classes, films such as Jeo Haneul-edo Seulpeum-i ( Sorrow Even Up in Heaven, 1965), Sanbul (B urning Mountain, 1977), Sagyeokjang-ui Aideul ( Children in the Firing Range, 1967) and Dosi-lo Gan Cheonyeo ( The Maiden Who Went to the City, 1981). Hyeolmaek was Kim Soo-yong’s first realist film, even though it was his 20th feature in the five years since his debut as a commercial director.
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