| Director | Ivan Ivanov-Vano, Lev Milchin, Shin Sang-ok |
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)]] The film opens with a quote from the Bible (for the first time in the history of North Korean cinema where only quotations from Kim Il Sung were typical): "You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again?" (Matthew 5:13).
The setting of the film is Kando (Jiandao) in the 1930s, torn apart by ethnic conflict in which the Koreans are "literally caught in the crossfire" of Japanese occupiers, Chinese bandits, and communist guerrillas. The local policing force is supposed to protect the peasants, but in truth only works when the interests of the Japanese occupiers are at stake.
The protagonist is an anonymous mother whose husband is killed by bandits. Her son Pong Shik runs off with a band of guerrillas, and her other children fall ill and are denied care by a doctor. The youngest of her sons was born after she was raped by a Chinese landlord, in a scene described as the darkest in the film. After a failed abortion attempt, the mother tries to suffocate the unwanted child before finally deciding to hang herself. However, her neighbor comes to her rescue, cutting the noose just as she is about to breathe her last. The neighbor, although poor, gives the mother's family some salt and suggests it as an opportunity to help alleviate her plight.
At the end of the film, the mother carries an expensive sack of salt on a mountain trail with other smugglers. They are attacked by bandits, who in turn are chased away by the communist guerrillas. The guerrillas vow to protect the common people and the mother realizes that her son did not run away from his family with bad intent, but was in fact a hero. She is now determined to find her son and follow the guerrillas.