Just before he dies, Moon Duk-Bae indicates that he wants to be buried on the island where he was born, Kwisong. His son Moon Chae-Ku respects his father’s wish and takes his coffin to the island. The islanders want to stop Moon Chae-Ku coming. His friend Kim Chul, a poet also born on the island, tries in vain to change the minds of the islanders. The two nevertheless travel to the island and as soon as they arriver there, memories come to the surface. Kim Chul remembers in particular the wife of Moon Duk-Bae, who went mad with grief when her daughter died. Her husband then took her to an asylum and returned in the company of his mistress. Not much later, war broke out between the Communists and the Nationalists. Communist troops arrived, but they turned out to be Nationalists in disguise who had come on Moon’s initiative to purge the island of Communists.
