The First Issue is composed of five short films created between 2016 and 2018: "The Designated Driver", "Let's Get Divorced", "Ambivalently Yours", " Sorry", and "The Congressman".

Yeon-gyu is a teenage boy who wants to escape his hometown where violence is commonly enacted among neighbors. He only hopes to have a peaceful life with his mother. However, the world never allows him to have a dream nor hope for life. When Yeon-gyu needs a hand from grown-ups, Chi-geon, a thug of the town, offers a favor. The simple favor leads Yeon-gyu to explore the world of Chi-geon. It ironically results Yeon-gyu gradually falling into Chi-geon's life. Grasping hope to run away from where he is, he struggles between the border. Can he escape from the town at the end?

After a humiliating encounter, a group of small town thugs begin a feud with a big city gangster.

The Korean war does not start well for the US. They are being routed by the North Koreans and In July 1950, the early stage of the Korean War, at the Jugok Village in the middle of the Korean Peninsula, Chang-yee and his friends grow excited over the amateur singing contest knowing nothing about what is going on around them. At the time, the US Army keeps losing and are pushed back to the village, evacuating all villagers to head south. The villagers took refuge like going on a picnic believing that the US Army is protecting them, they just follow their orders moving south bound.

A 50-year-old woman named 'Sang-Ju' faces her lost self, while organizing a funeral for a stranger.

Yong-geun, an HIV-Positive, goes back to his hometown for celebrating his father's birthday. Taking pills has become his everyday life since it helps him maintain an ordinary life. As Yong and a man he meets at a spontaneous gathering head to a motel, the guy finds out a box of pills in Yong-geun's bag.

Hyun-jae, a 16-year-old escaping her abusive father, manipulates Hae-in, a woman searching for her missing daughter, into taking her in as a replacement. Over the summer, Hyun-jae bonds with Hae-in, finding peace through her love for singing, but becomes obsessed with becoming Hae-in's new daughter. When Hae-in learns her missing daughter may have been found, Hyun-jae, despite her fears, makes a selfless decision to accompany her, realizing she can't replace Yun-seul.

A futuristic film about a crisis near the brink of war after three leaders are kidnapped by a North Korean nuclear submarine in a coup d’état during a summit between the two Koreas and the United States.

A group of Korean tourists is taken hostage by an extremist Taliban group in Afghanistan. The Korean government dispatches Jae-ho, known as one of Korea's most skilled diplomats, in order to handle the situation. Once he arrives, he asks for the Afghan government's cooperation and uses every means possible to free the hostages. However, his efforts go in vain. Due to his failure, he's forced to work with Dae-sik, a special agent who is an expert on the Middle East. As they begin making their move to get to the Taliban, the first hostage death occurs. With nowhere else to turn, the two become unlikely allies in a race against time to save the rest of the hostages.