Chilsu is a gifted painter from a modest background who dreams about moving to the United States to join up with his sister. In the meantime, he works as an assistant to Mansu, whose business is painting ads for billboards. Mansu would also like to go abroad, but his father's political past prevents him from getting a visa. As tensions mount in their lives, the two men climb to the top of the large building on which they've been working and shout out their feelings about life and society drawing the attention of a crowd of onlookers and local authorities. An extraordinarily impressive debut for Park Kwang-su, Chilsu and Mansu caught the spirit of frustration and rebelliousness felt by the young after the beginning of the re-democratization of South Korea. His two leads have an appealing everydayness to them, which makes the escalating confrontation with the police seem so ultimately and tragically unnecessary.