The Beginning of Misfortune

Mu-kwang volunteers to be a kitchen police of Sa-taek, the divisional commander, dreaming of success. One day, Mu-kwang meets Su-ryeon by chance, who is a young and beautiful wife of the commander. Soon, he feels a strong attraction by her.

Kim Seong-nam travels to Paris to escape an arrest, leaving his wife behind in Korea. After he arrives, he meets an ex-girlfriend and is introduced to a small community of Korean artists.

Rory is an ambitious entrepreneur who brings his American wife and kids to his native country, England, to explore new business opportunities. After abandoning the sanctuary of their safe American suburban surroundings, the family is plunged into the despair of an archaic '80s Britain and their unaffordable new life in an English manor house threatens to destroy the family.

The lives of 4 interconnected South Koreans – a married couple, a novelist the wife is having an affair with, and a second woman the novelist is simultaneously involved with.

Soo Yeon decides to commit suicide to end the bullying she goes through at school, when a savior appears. A woman punishes the bullies on behalf of Soo Yeon and saves her from the reality of hell.

Cheon-ji's unexpected suicide causes her mother Hyeon-sook and older sister Man-ji to be moved into another apartment. Tracking down clues from school, Man-ji discovers that Cheon-ji's best friend Hwa-yeon is behind everything.

She has never lived in a high-rise apartment, and she wonders how her sister can live at this height every day. A few days ago she kind of burst in to stay with her sister, and she is now becoming re-accustomed to life in Korea. While seeming to keep a grave secret to herself, she manages life one day at a time with a sense of mindfulness. Meanwhile a certain director, some years younger than her, has asked her to join his project, and after a polite refusal, they have agreed to meet for the first time today. Downtown Seoul is filled with narrow alleys that harbor tiny old bars, and that's where they meet. As they are getting drunk, there is sudden rainfall and thunder.

Romances end in blood and the frail hopes of individuals are torn apart in a vile karmic continuity of colonialism, civil war and occupation. After surviving Japanese colonization, Korea became the first war zone of the Cold War. The legacy of war remains today in this divided country.

Jo, the mother of seven children, divorces her second husband in order to marry Jake, a successful but promiscuous screenwriter. Though they are physically and emotionally compatible, they are slowly torn apart.

On the French island of Mont Saint-Michel, Jack, a failed presidential candidate, Tom, a poet and Sonia, a physicist, engage in an intellectual conversation about politics, philosophy and life over the course of a single day.