Shin Sang-ok’s masterpiece centres around young girl Oak-hee and her extended family. Moments of poignancy cut through quirky humour when Shin’s focus is the socially taboo attraction between Oak’hee’s widow mother (Shin’s wife Choi Eun-hee) and their artist lodger.

In 1978 Shin and his wife were kidnapped by Kim Jong-il to revitalise North Korea’s film industry, but escaped while in Vienna in 1986.