Chang-jo Jeong is staying with his grandmother, while his parents are out of town, trying to set up a business. They haven't written, and money is beyond tight; it's non-existent. It's a particular problem because he needs to come up with money to pay for his school.
This very early Korean feature -- the IMDb lists only about 75 earlier movies of any length -- is about poverty, and the cheerful acceptance of it, and the lack of shame concerning it in a poor country. Korea was controlled by Japan since the Russo-Japanese War; it had been officially taken over in 1910, and wouldn't regain even nominal independence until after the Second World War. This movie does not cut any didoes, its incidents are rendered in a straightforward fashion. Although it definitely has a place in the history of Korean Cinema, it's relatively simple in terms of world cinema at the time.
