Despite their different family backgrounds, four friends grew up together in the wearisome years of the 70s. But as time goes by, each of them takes a different life path.
Once at a pagoda Mongryong Lee, a scion of a well-to-do family, meets Chunhyang, the young daughter of a courtesan and an aristocrat. Despite her low social standing she is smart and well-educated. The young people fall in love and think about marriage so that they could always be together. Mongryong is soon to go to the capital to take the state civil service exam. They part and in Chunhyang's life there appears the greedy and lustful Byun Hak-do, who tries to seduce her.
In-gu, a drugstore owner, rediscovers love when he meets a humble woman named Hye-ran, who sells knockoff clothing for a living.
The politician Koo Myung-hui finds his wife in the garage. She is cleaning her son's bloodstained car, which has just run over a person.