A Bloody Aria

An aspiring opera singer and her professor travel to the countryside to discuss the audition outcomes. They settle by a desolate riverbank, light a campfire, and exchange uneasy silences that hint at underlying tensions. The quiet moment foreshadows the danger lurking beneath their plan.

The professor makes a predatory attempt to force himself on In-jeong. She escapes into the surrounding forest while their car remains stuck, exposing the fragility of safety in this moment. The incident marks the turning point from a calm study trip to a nightmare.

Three local thugs on motorcycles descend on the scene and confront the car, escalating the danger. The gang leader drags In-jeong back toward the riverbank and she briefly encounters Young-seon, though neither acknowledges the other. The tension widens into a menacing standoff.

A young taekwondo student, Hyeon-jae, is dropped into the scene by the gang. The thug leader harasses him and orders a brutal act, signaling violence will escalate. In-jeong voices her disapproval, increasing the danger in the moment.

Hyeon-jae quickly gains the upper hand in the fight, overpowering Young-seon. He then turns on the gang and leaves them unconscious, shifting the balance of power to the boy. The scene marks a startling reversal of control.

In a brutal gesture, the boy digs a shallow hole in the riverbank, buries the thugs up to their chests, and douses them with gasoline, ready to ignite them. In-jeong pleads with him to stop, but the plan moves forward until the leader regains consciousness and strikes the boy with a shovel, breaking free. The moment ends with the thugs unconscious but the threat unresolved.

Yeong-seon locates a police officer he met earlier and explains the danger at the riverbank, including the kidnapped boy. They rush back toward the river to intervene, and the officer is revealed to be the boy's older brother, Moon-jae. The moment reintroduces a personal sting to the rescue attempt.

When they reach the scene, they find no one waiting because the thugs have moved the boy into a car trunk and driven toward another river to hide the evidence. The boy regains consciousness and fires several shots as the car crashes, inflaming the pursuit. The collision nonetheless forces a turn in the chase.

The officer identifies Bong-yeon, the thug leader, as his former schoolmate who used to bully him. The confrontation becomes a cruel echo of past abuse and the violence reaches a blunt, personal peak. The account leaves the survivor and the officer in a charged, uneasy moral space.

The tin box taken from one of the thugs originally contained cough powder, but a potent poison used to capture birds has been mistaken for cocaine. The officer tests the contents and dies soon after, becoming the single victim of the harrowing ordeal. His death underscores the film's harsh meditation on justice and consequence.

The riverbank remains a site of unresolved trauma, where power and fear have left an indelible imprint on everyone involved. The story lingers on the consequences of violence and the fragility of safety. The ending leaves the characters to grapple with loss and revenge.

The film closes on the sense that healing is incomplete and justice comes at a high cost. The survivors carry the weight of what happened as they look toward an uncertain future. The final image emphasizes the ongoing impact of violence on ordinary lives.