Once upon a time back in the era of the Shilla Dynasty when Buddhism was the religion of peasants and kings, there lived a young monk named Jo-shin. Of all of the temples in all of the kingdom, Dal-lae had to walk into his. Ten years of studying and training melt from him at the sight of the beautiful young woman. Jo-shin manages to have his way with her, then this unlikely couple flee the temple, proper society and Dal-lae’s enraged fiancé. Passion cools, and their lives are soon full of hardships they never imagined.

A modern story by Yi Kwang-su provided a literary original. The outlines of the tale go back to earlier narratives as old as the Shilla era itself, in particular the tale of ‘Jo-shin’s Dream’. Tales and film all grow from a tradition of dream-vision narratives in both Korean and Chinese literature. Bae’s second period film, after the stunning Hwang Jin-i (1986).