Jeon Tae-Il was a young left-wing activist in the very anti-communist sixties in Korea. During his work in a sewing workshop, he one day saw a woman cough up blood as a result of the TB she had caught working in the unventilated space. The incident changed his life. His father told him there really were laws to prevent conditions like this. Despite his dedication, Jeon Tae-Il made little progress in his attempts to change the situation.Jeon Tae-Il is not a militant biography of this activist, who eventually sacrifices himself – as an almost typical Koreanprotest – for the improvement of working conditions. The film concentrates on the adventures of Kim Young-Su who is writing a biography of Jeon, but doesn’t know if or when it will ever be published. It is 1975, a period known as the ‘Dark Age’. Kim is involved in organising demonstrations and tries to keep out of the hands of the law. His pregnant wife has similar problems because she has tried to found a trade union. Director Park moves back and forth between the life of Jeon Tae-Il as it takes shape in his biographer’s mind and events surrounding the latter in a no-less-repressive era. This form makes the film an elegy reflecting on the area where art meets life.
