In 1970, a young labor activist in South Korea committed suicide by self-immolation as a protest against the deplorable conditions under which Korean garment-industry workers were forced to work. Artfully blending color and black and white stock, moving back and forth in time, Park delves into the character of Korean society, past and present, through the investigations of a fictional journalist, an amalgam of three real-life activists, who is writing a biography of the dead Jeon Tae-Il a decade after his suicide.
