Obaltan note is a 1960 South Korean tragedy that entails a fictional account of a family unable to cope with a war-torn and cash-strapped country, prompting them to make difficult sacrifices until one of them snaps and pulls a job on a bank.
The film mainly focuses on two brothers, Cheolho and Yeongho, who are both unemployed and don't have enough money to provide for their family.
Tropes
- America Takes Over the World: The US soldiers stationed in South Korea are cocky, perverted and hardly disciplined. They are in love with Korean women and the women, including Cheolho's sister Myeongsuk, pimped themselves out to the US soldiers when economic hardships are making Korea's homegrown men unable to be sufficient breadwinners.
- Arc Words: "Let's get out of here!"
- Bank Robbery: Yeongho pulls one off at the end to keep his family from starving. He eventually gets cornered under a bridge, surrenders the money, then his gun and finally gives up and cries as the police arrest him.
- Being Good Sucks: Nothing close to a reward ever happens to Yeongho for his time in the Korean War, being left with scars, brutal memories of war and the economy doesn't have a job for him.
- Crapsack World: The movie takes place in South Korea, but in the 1960s, back when it was a failing poverty-stricken dictatorship far removed from the capitalist First World nation it is today.
- Downer Ending: Boy, it is depressing. Yeongho goes to jail, Cheolho's dentist refused to do his whole job by removing both of Cheolho's two aching teeth even for full pay, Cheolho's wife died after giving birth but his father doesn't know about him, Cheolho in pain from his dental surgery just keeps telling his taxi driver to keep driving aimlessly ("Let's get out of here!").
- Greater-Scope Villain: North Korea, who started the Korean War and left the South in shambles.
- Scars Are Forever: Yeongho has scars from his time as a soldier in the Korean War.
- Screw the Money, I Have Rules!: Yeongho also turns down a paying job for a movie production because the director just wants to mock him for his scars.
- Shell-Shocked Veteran: The brothers' mother is stricken with PTSD and can never get over the cannons firing which she barely escaped. She continuously screams, "Let's get out of here!"
