In the winter of 1980s coal mining town, Ki-young runs away from the police due to his student protest and hides into the town. Then, Ki-young meets an unhappy waitress Young-sook who falls for him, and two people decide to leave together.

In a mining village layered in gray dust, a man posing as Kim Ki-Young finds refuge from winter and the law. Wanted by the police for an offense he commited under the authoritarian rule of the 1980's, he conceals himself as an odd-jobber in a briquette factory. There he meets old and feeble Shim, heavily indebted Chung, Sooney's mother who must nurse her husband, and little Dae-Sik. He befriends Sung-Chul, an apparently immoral hellraiser with true maternal kindness. When Ki-Young meets Young-Sook, a lonely waitress, their lives get altered in a loving, philosophical manner.—Transian

On the run for supposed political crimes, Kim Ki-young seeks anonymity as a laborer in a coal briquet factory. But even this life is precarious. The coal industry is on the verge of collapse due to cheaper foreign imports. Kim falls for Young-sook, a waitress at the local tea house. As the mine goes on strike, fate and the law close in on Kim.—L.H. Wong <[email protected]>