is a story about elite high school seniors, the top 1%, who are prepared to go to extremes to get into prestigious universities. A student who has ranked number one at an esteemed school dies in a remote mountain. Finding out why and the ultimate impact of his death make up the bulk of this thriller’s elaborate narrative, whose shocking conclusion could lead us to comment, “We’ve seen a devil.” Despite a structure that freely weaves together past and present, and a cast of appealing actors including Lee David, Gung Jun and Kim Kkot-bi, the most remarkable thing about the film is the theme itself. It touches on and raises the critical issue of the demands of Korea’s education system, which are becoming more extreme and competitive by the day.

An ordinary businessman in his forties, JANG Ga-pil returns home one day to find his daughter sexually molested by some schoolboys, including school boxing star KANG Tae-wook. Realizing that he has no background and money to fight back, he plans to stab KANG on the way to school. This fails miserably, but another student named GO Seung-suk agrees to teach Ga-pil to fight ? in only 45 days.

A man on deathrow wants to taste “doenjang jjigae” (a spicy Korean bean paste stew) before he dies. Television producer Choi Yu-Jin (Ryoo Seung-Ryong) hears of the inmate and researches his story for an upcoming news report. Choi Yu-Jin then comes across a mysterious woman named Jang Hye-Jin (Lee Yo-Won) who makes doenjang jjigae that brings tears of joy to those who tastes her recipe. As Choi Yu-Jin delves further, he learns of Jang Hye-Jin’s heart breaking relationship with Kim Hyun-Soo (Lee Dong-Wook).

Based on true events, renowned mountaineer UM Hong-gil sets out on a mission to Everest to retrieve his late junior climber’s body and faces the greatest challenge of his life.

The son of a North Korean spy decides to follow in his father’s footsteps to protect his little sister. After his father’s botched espionage mission, North Korean Myung-hoon and his young sister Hye-in are sent to a labor prison camp. In order to save his sister’s life, Myung-hoon volunteers to become a spy and infiltrates the South as a teenage defector. While attending high school in the South, he meets another girl named Hye-in, and rescues her when she comes under attack. South Korean Intelligence soon discover Myung-hoon’s activities and begin tracking him, all the while his own government sends a vicious assassin to eliminate him.

Dong-chul was the best special field agent in North Korea, but he’s abandoned by his government during a mission. While on the run, he looks for his wife and child, who were sold as slaves to China, only to discover their corpses. He soon finds out that his colleague was behind the killing and defects to the South in search of his nemesis. He looks for him during the day, and works as a temp driver at night and as a personal driver for Chairman PARK. One night the chairman is attacked and killed by an assassin, but not before handing over a pair of glasses to Dong-chul. He is now on the run again, accused of the chairman’s murder by the intelligence service, while trying to uncover the secret contained inside the glasses. Little did he know that depending on who ultimately gains control of the secret, it could either become a national threat or treasure.

Cheol-Min, a man with a dark, picks up a part-time night job as a parking lot attendant. He sits in the tiny pay booth in the parking lot and stares at the small television. A woman named Jung-Hwa walks into the booth. Cheol-Min realizes the woman is blind and she is confusing him for the parking attendant who worked there previously. Nevertheless, the woman comes back on another night to watch the same television drama series. Cheol-Min starts becoming attached to Jung-Hwa and they find out they are connected by the same incident in the past.

The region where the borders of North Korea, China, and Russia come together, forms a sort of modern day wild west, where more than half of the population relies on illegal activity in order to survive. In Yanbian, on the Chinese side of the border, Gu-nam (Ha Jung-woo) wiles away his days driving a cab and spends his nights getting drunk and gambling. His wife went to Seoul to work and send back money, but it’s been months since he has heard from her. When local crime lord Myun (Kim Yun-seok) offers to erase Gu-nam’s debts in exchange for a contract killing in Seoul, Gu-nam reluctantly accepts.