Lee Chang-dong is the award winner South Korean director mostly focusing on dark stories of innocence lost, suffering and alienation. His key themes have been consistently about psychological trauma.

His latest film is the Spirit Award-nominated film Burning that tells the story of Lee Jong-su (Yo Ah-in) an aspiring writer who performs odd jobs to make a living. Jong-su father is a bovine farmer who is dealing with legal affairs in court forcing Jong-su to deal with the farm. One day Jong-su bump into Shin Hae-mi (Jeon Jong-seo ) a girl who works at a department store who used to be a childhood neighbor, Jong-so doesn't remember her but quickly start dating. After one of those dates, they had sex.
Hae-mi asks Jong-so to take care of her cat while she is in Africa, Jong-su comes every day to feed the cat but never sees it. He also starts masturbating in her apartment. During Hae-mi returns Jong-su comes to pick her up at the airport, where he meets Ben (Steven Yeun) who end up traveling with Hae-mi during a three days terror warning at the Nairobi Airport.

Jong-su doesn't like Ben, he even called him Great Gatsby, a privileged guy, with money who is also very mysterious. However, Hae-mi likes him, which makes Jong-su jealous and hard to compete.

As the story unfolds, Hae-mi disappearance makes Jong-su worried about it, he suspects of Ben and starts investigating.

It is hard to find a film like Burning, a South Korean psychological drama mystery with such a powerful performance and well-made movie. Lee Chang-dong delivers a dark film where the audiences will keep asking at the end, what really happens.