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.

R returns from studying in France and reunites with J, whom he used to live with in Paris.

The 1930s. Wishing to pass down his knowledge, the father teaches his children to sing Pansori. The elder daughter and the younger son become professional singers but time has changed and people are no longer interested in folk singing. The younger boy gives up on his studies and runs away from home. Fearful that the daughter might do the same, the father blinds her. The blind girl continues to practice with great diligence and achieves perfection in this art. Years pass, the brother is roaming the world in search of his sister and eventually finds her. All night long they sing together sharing their memories.

Three best friends meet and boldly talk about sex together. Their characters are as different as their lifestyles. One works at a hotel, one at a design firm and the other is a graduate student. The conversations alter their lives as they begin to have different sexual relationships than before.

A man, feeling guilty and depressed over a life-and-death decision he made while rock climbing, which left his friend dead, regains hope and the will to live when an elderly man gives him a diary belonging to a soldier during the Korean War.

Young-ae is a prostitute who obsesses over money after losing her daughter to illness. Her co-workers are jealous of her. When a prostitute named Mrs. Kangwon dies after giving a birth, Young-ae takes the baby under her care and leaves the brothel district. Although she struggles to make ends meet and provide a home for the child, the child is taken away by the authorities because she is single. She decides that her old life is the only ground for living she has and returns to it.

Hye-seon grew up in an orphanage with Myeong-gu. They marry when they get older but strain on there relationship tears them apart. Pregnant and alone, Hye-aeon wonders where to turn.

A monk rapes a beautiful young woman who visits his monastery. He quits the monastery, marries the woman, and they have kids. But she despises him all the while and devotes herself to tormenting him.