A grumpy old woman befriends a young civil servant and learns English from him. She then reveals to him her shocking past.

On one of the dog days of summer, Jae-ha works at Samgye-tang (chicken soup) restaurant as a day laborer instead of her mother, who died of a stroke. There, through her mother’s co-workers, Jae-ha gets to know new aspects of her mother that she did not notice throughout her lifetime.

Shortly after the Korean war, a father and a son are wandering through the country and make a stop in a remote village, where strange and dangerous happenings occur.