Melodrama in which emotions and moral choices are exceptionally fresh, direct and moving. The film is set in the fifties, when the traditional culture of Korea was under pressure from Japanese and Western influences. We see in flashbacks how Dong-ho is searching the countryside for a rare medicinal herb for his sick son in Seoul. But in reality he is looking for Song-hwa, the woman he grew up with. They were both orphans and pupils of Yu-bong, the ‘pansori’ master (pansori is a popular folk song in South Western Korea and is the musical expression of collective suffering). Yu-bong forced them to sacrifice everything for their art. was the biggest cash success in the history of South Korea, where almost a million people have seen the film.
