The Fishing Boats Are Full

Lee and Pak work at the same bank and live together in secrecy. Pak has grown tired of Lee's drunken and boorish behavior and longs for a more serious and stable relationship. Pak visits her hometown and reflects on her past traumas. Feeling all the more alienated, she returns to the city.

The hostess Oh Hak-ja has not experienced true love yet. Though outwardly, Hak-ja seems to distrust men, she earnestly thirsts for love. Hak-ja tries to find true love with a young man named Ji Suk-wu but he betrays her. Promising to meet again, Suk-wu goes abroad but Hak-ja falls into despair when he doesn't return.

The story takes place on a mountain slope where defectors from North Korea live. These families sell cheap things such as socks and pens to make a living and there is a serious gap between the parents and their children. A widower Kim Duk-sam (Kim Seung-ho) nags his son Geo-buk (Shin Seong-il) to join the American army. Hwang Jung-soon who lives next door teaches her daughter Bok-soon (Um Aing-ran) traditional Korean folksongs and forces her to become a giseng (Korean geisha).

Under false pretenses, Zhenzhen marries Mr. Lin, who happens to be her teacher. She wants to still study and wants to enroll in his school in Hong Kong. The head of the school agrees to this under the condition that they conceal the fact that they are married. Zhenzhen finds out right away that her husband is fawned over by the girls, they all have a crush on him, as also does the spinster librarian. However, Mr. Lin finds that that the boys in the school (they are late teens, 17 or so) really like Zhenzhen. This leads to hurt feelings, questions about fidelity and even, in Zhenzhen's case, innocuous dates with one of the boys who rides a motorcycle.

Hye-rim is a model prisoner serving out her sentence for murder. With two years left to go, she gets a special outing. Hye-rim gets on a train to Kang-reung to visit her mother's grave. At the place, she meets Min-gi, a young man running away after being involved in a crime organization. Min-gi's persistence melts the heart that was hardened in jail. Hye-rim and Min-gi fall in love.