Break Out

A loser, Bong-gu, attends a high school reunion, where he is ridiculed for his lack of accomplishments. The next day he goes to the country for army reserve training, where he encounters further humiliation and failure. With his last few won he purchases a cheap cigarette lighter. With no other way home, he shares a taxi to Seoul train station with a fellow reservist and malcontent named Bum-soo. While at the station, Bong-gu leaves his lighter in a bathroom stall, where it is purloined by a gangster, Yang Chul-gon. Enraged beyond endurance, Bong-gu demands the lighter back, provoking a beating from the gangster's underlings. Undeterred, he follows Chul-gon onto a train. There, Chul-gon has more important business to attend to, waylaying a senator whom he had helped into office but who has since refused to reciprocate with any political favors. When the senator stubbornly refuses to concede, Chul-gon takes the entire train hostage. Meanwhile, Bong-gu will stop at nothing to recover his lighter.