This film is Yu Hyun-mok's most exem­plary work and a key work of Korean realist cinema. The film captures the collective anxiety of post-war Korea through clerk Cheol-ho and his family – his mentally ill mother, his sex-work­er sister and his bank-robber brother. This family is trapped in the prison of a powerful, unyielding social structure. Cheol-ho is a tortured soul and often ends up wandering around the streets of Seoul late at night. The film has long been considered a cursed masterpiece.

„This film was considered a lost Korean masterpiece, because after the release it was banned by the military government and the original film negative disappeared. Director Yu Hyun-mok, like neorealists in Italy after the war, sought to represent those who did not receive appropriate attention. Finally we can see the restored version of this important film." (Mantė Valiūnaitė)