Synopsis

dove image

Comrade Kim Yong Mi is a 28 year-old coal miner who lives with her father and grandmother in a small village in the North Korean countryside. When she was young her Mother supported her dream to become an acrobat but when her mother died, her father wanted her to concentrate on her work in the coalmine and forget her childish dreams of flying. However, her love for acrobats never goes away and when she travels to Pyongyang to work for a year at the Construction Site the first thing she visits is the circus.

Backstage, she meets her heroine the famous trapeze artist Ri Su Yon who encourages her to go for an audition. It is like a dream come true but at the audition Yong Mi finds she cannot cope with the height of the trapeze and falls. She is mocked by Pak Jang Phil, the handsome, arrogant trapeze star. Groomed since childhood for stardom by an overbearing mother, he insults her and tells her that miners belong underground, not in the air.

Humiliated, Comrade Kim Yong Mi heads to the Construction Brigade determined to prove Pak Jang Phil wrong. Her sympathetic manager decides to help her overcome her fear of heights and enlists the whole company to help. She will perform as part of the Worker’s Festival to show her newly acquired talents before returning to the coal mine.

Pak Jang Phil runs into her on several occasions and finds himself inexplicably drawn to her. At the Worker’s Acrobatic Festival he is amazed by her performance and unconsciously falls in love.

He realises that Yong Mi could become a trapeze artist, even though she is already old by circus standards but he is determined to try.

He heads to the coal mine village to persuade Yong Mi to join the circus and to persuade her father to give permission.

Yong Mi and her dream of flying are reawakened. She trains for a position in the trapeze team but it is so hard that Comrade Kim Yong Mi comes close to giving up. However, she struggles on and as she does so she is drawn closer to Pak Jang Phil. The circus held a trial to see if she has the capability to perform at the highest level. She has just one last chance prove that a coal miner can fly and prove that dreams really can come true.

View stills from the movie