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.
South Korea after the Korean War. A father and also a musician is traveling with his son through the country to find a new home. They arrive at a remote village in the middle of the mountains. Though the people are polite, they seem also afraid of something. The father decides that they stay at night, because he thinks that they are just superstitious. But it turns out that the villagers are afraid because of supernatural and very deadly reason.—Anonymus
A partly lame father and his ten-year old son are travelling to Seoul in the aftermath of the Korean War. They are seeking treatment for the boy, who has tuberculosis. The father believes this has been guaranteed by an American, although it becomes clear that this is a hollow promise. They accidentally stumble on a village hiding from the world and spend a few days resting there while the father earns hospitality by doing odd jobs and entertaining the villagers with his music on the pipe of the title. He woos a young woman and frees the village of a rat infestation in exchange for cash, but the collective paranoia of the villagers begins to manifest as they refuse to pay him. As he comes to realise the reasons for the village's self-imposed isolation, the piper plots his terrible revenge.—[email protected]
Woo-Ryong a musician and his son find their way to a secluded village and take refuge there. They quickly fit in and forge new relationships with the villagers. But as time goes by, it is apparent that this village is anything but normal. After a tragedy strikes Woo-ryong, he decides to embark on a path of revenge to avenge the injustice committed against him by those he thought he could trust.—D.C
In the 1950s after the Korean War, a gentle wandering piper with a limp, Woo-ryong, and his sick young son, Young-nam, are en-route by foot to Seoul through the central Korean highlands when they reach a remote village. The village chief allows Woo-ryong and his son to stay at his house. The piper shows the Chief an English-written note, the chief lies and tells him that it says the name of an American doctor at a hospital in Seoul who can treat Young-nam. The Chief, who tells the piper not to tell anyone else the war is over, agrees but he cannot read English either. Woo-ryong is smitten by a villager called Mi-sook who lost her husband and child in the war.
Woo-ryong quickly sees that the village is plagued by rats that do not fear humans and do not fall for traps and poisons. The chief explains he and his people came here when they heard Chinese soldiers were approaching their old village. They hid the village lepers in a cave with the village shaman. But when the Chinese had not reached the village, they returned to the cave but found all the lepers were dead and being eaten by rats. The vicious vermin then invaded the village because it had no shaman to keep them out.
Woo-ryong volunteers to get rid of the rats in exchange for the price of a cow that will help pay for his son's medical treatment. He spreads a special powder across the village and goes to a nearby hilltop. Checking the wind direction he lights a very smokey fire that smothers the village in smoke. At the same time, Mi-sook, who has been forced by the chief to become the new village shaman begins a purification ritual with bells. Rats start pouring out of the buildings following Woo-ryung's powder to a cave.
Mi-sook starts to fall in love with Woo-ryung due to his kind nature. The son even starts to call her "mummy". However, the chief threatens her if she plans to leave the village after learning that Woo-ryung invited Mi-sook to go to Seoul with him and his son to start a family together. It is revealed that the chief intends to keep the villagers ignorant about the end of the Korean War to maintain his control over the people since if the people found out that the war is over, they would leave the village for the better life in the city or going back to the old village. He also plots with his son, Nam-soo, to not reward the Piper for getting rid of the rats out of petty greed and Nam-soo is also jealous with Woo-ryong for grating Mi-sook's affection.
Taking advantage on the ignorance of the villagers, first they create doubt in the mind of the male villagers making them believe that Woo-ryong is a communist spy who brought the rats with him. At a village meeting, the chief says he is going to pay the piper but a dead cat is found. Proof the chief says that the rats are back. He holds up Woo-ryung's English note and says its spying material; it simply reads "Kiss my ass, monkey" - no American doctor's name just a cruel joke. Woo-ryung reaches for the money but Nam-soo chops off two of his fingers with a knife. The villagers turn on Woo-ryung and Young-nam, even Mi-sook condemns them. But as the villagers get ready to throw them out, Mi-sook returns in a shamanic trance but stabbed in the stomach. She tells the villagers that on a day without sun they will all die and their children might live or die, repeating the original shaman's prophecy before she was locked up and burnt alive by the villagers. Mi-sook then dies from her wounds.
Before they leave, the Chief puts two poisoned rice-balls in Woo-ryung's knapsack to kill them to prevent the father and son from telling anyone about the location of the village. The injured piper falls asleep while his son sneaks back to the village to retrieve his father's pipe from the Chief's house, but not before taking the poisoned rice balls with him. He sneaks into the chief's house and finds his father's pipe on a shelf and takes it back.
On the way back to his father, Young-nam eats one of the poisoned rice-balls and dies. Woo-ryong is shown grabbing at his spirit before losing his grip, he is shown cuddling his son's corpse grief stricken by his death. Woo-ryong having figured out what had happened, sets out to get revenge on the entire village. He burns his son's body on a funeral pyre, which is also used to cover the entire village with the same smoke he used earlier to get rid of the rats. He also covers himself in the special powder he used earlier to attract the rats and reopens the cave.
He uses his two severed fingers as bait and starts playing his pipe to lead the rats back to the village where they start devouring all the adults in their sleep, while the chief discovers their predicament and heads back to his house. He opens a hidden compartment showing his military uniform, which reveals that he was a soldier himself before he retired. He grabs his Katana to defend himself against the rats, while his son is devoured trying to get a cat to eat the rats. The chief is approached by a villager asking for help, but instead cuts him down and encounters a disheveled Woo-Ryung. The chief angered and shocked asked why he did this, Woo-ryung says that since he did not pay him, he decided to return the rats to the village, since their agreement has been nullified.
The chief, however is un-remorseful and is shocked by his actions as all the adults are dead and asks how he can call himself a human being for doing this. However, Woo-ryung fires back saying that he had not only gone back on their deal, he turned the villagers against him and even killed his son. The chief frightened, tries to run and climbs up a rope swing to avoid the rats. Unfortunately for him, the rope snaps and he falls unconscious before being eaten alive by the rats.
Next morning only the villagers' children are alive, Woo-ryung plays his pipe and leads them to the cave where he trapped the rats. After sealing them all in, he turns and looks emotionless into the camera. (Courtesy of Wikipedia)
