Come, Come, Come, Upward

Sun-nyeo (Kang Soo-yeon) has been traveling the country after running away from home. She meets a monk named Wun-bong (Jeon Mu-song) and learns that he is her own father, who joined the Buddhist order to expiate for the sins he committed in the Vietnam War. After traveling with him for a while, Sun-nyeo leaves him without a word. On her way to her father’s temple in Gangwon-do, she meets Jong-hyeon (Yu In-chon), a school teacher who enjoys the adoration of his female students, and ends up accompanying him to Buyeo. Jong-hyeon is still grieving for his wife, who was executed by firing squad during the Gwangju Democratization Movement, even though she was pregnant at the time. To carry on her legacy, Jong-hyeon plans to write an epic poem about the fall of the kingdom of Baekjea history written from the loser’s, rather than the winner’s, point of view. Jong-hyeon and Sun-nyeo stay in the same boarding house. But when the news reaches the school, he is forced to resign his post and Sun-nyeo becomes a monk under the tutelage of Monk Eun-seon (Yoon In-ja).

Jin-sung (Jin Young-mi), another of Monk Eun-seon’s disciples, believes that enlightenment must be reached through solitary mediation and self-enlightenment. In this, she clashes with Sun-nyeo, who thinks that a monk’s training should take place through experience of the secular world. At Monk Eun-seon’s recommendation, Jin-sung begins attending college to gain worldly experience. Wu Jong-nam (Kim Se-jun) cavils with her at every turn, arguing that the true path to enlightenment lies among the masses who are suffering under the iron fist of despotism. Meanwhile, Sun-nyeo saves a man named Pak Hyun-wu (Han Ji-il), who attempts to kill himself out of despair at being a victim of the “guilty by association” law. Hyun-wu, who has committed many an evil deed in his life, vows to turn over a new leaf and insists that he absolutely needs Sun-nyeo to make a clean start. When this causes a scandal in the temple, Sun-nyeo is compelled to break her vows and leave with him. Sadly, Hyun-wu soon dies in a mine cave-in, and Sun-nyeo miscarries her baby.

Jin-sung sets off on a solitary journey of meditation in order to answer the question posed to her by Monk Eun-seon. When she runs into Sun-nyeo, who is following a path that is so different from her own, she is unable to understand her fellow disciple and continues on her way. Receiving word that Monk Eun-seon is gravely ill, Jin-sung and Sun-nyeo return to the temple. Monk Eun-seon, who has been quietly encouraging Sun-nyeo as she carried on her spiritual training in the secular world, expresses a dying wish for Sun-nyeo to be re-accepted into the temple, but everyone else treats Sun-nyeo with cold disdain. After the funeral, Sun-nyeo gathers her teacher’s remains and prepares to leave. She tells Jin-sung that she will make 1,000 pagodas all over the country and house Monk Eun-seon’s ashes in each, to shine the light of hope for people in the belief that she can save their souls in the secular world. Jin-sung is still unable to understand her, and Sun-nyeo sets off into world once more. —Korean Film Archive