People in the Slum: Once a Crook

If you're rich and you get caught doing a crime, what of it? Money can clean up your reputation over time. But if you're poor, no such luck. Shoplift and you're branded for life. So when pickpocket Kim Ju-seok (Ahn Sung-ki) gets busted for petty theft, his life is more or less ruined in perpetuity. He'll do his time in prison. He'll have a temporarily faithful wife Myeong-suk (Kim Bo-yeon) and a spitfire of a son (Cheon Dong-seok). He'll even get a job as a taxi driver. But ultimately, his life is doomed because from hereon, should anything bad happens in his vicinity, he's going to get fingered for it.

Such is the world of Bae Chang-ho's People in the Slum, a film parable in which one young man's "bad luck" seems to taint the lives of everyone around him. Even his mother-in-law dies early. Maybe the preacher who's now a local junk-seller (Song Jae-ho) escapes his shadow but the former holy man keeps his distance. As the crook's former wife puts it "I love you but I'm tired" and "I'm scared something bad's going to happen when you're around." That's why she stays with a drunk (Kim Hee-ra) instead. Misfortune has a shelf-life. When it passes the expiration date, it's a curse. And a curse is catching.