Ji-yong is a member of an underground college club. He is expelled from school after being the main culprit of turmoil. Ideologically confused, Ji-yong stows away to Japan. He meets Shin Ki-hwa who is a member of the Cho-chong-ryon, the Pro-North Korea Resident's League in Japan. Ki-hwa slowly starts to brainwash him. She puts her parents and sister on a ship headed to North Korea, and then goes to North Korea herself. Ji-yong and Ki-hwa witness firsthand the miserable life of the North Korean people. They try to escape from the building where the last part of the brainwashing is taking place, but they fail. Ji-yong starts a new life in this closed-in, oppressed society. Listening to the speakers in the Demilitarized Zone, he screams, asking for freedom, or death.