Filmmaker Im Sang-soo audaciously recreates the explosive historical events of 1979, when the South Korean president, Park Chung-hee, was assassinated. Baek Yun-shik plays CIA chief Kim, who harbors resentment at the president's dissolute ways, and takes matters into his own hands with the aid of his stooge, Ju (Han Suk-kyu). The sequence of events they unleash drives home the insanity, tragedy, and absurdity of contemporary politics, extrapolating upon history and drawing complex characters from the abstract figures who populate it.