“ In Seoul, the paths of two men and one woman intersect and move apart from one another, centering around their love for cinema. A suicidal student meets a young woman who decides to follow him in his fatal gesture. We next see a new character, Tong-su as he exits a movie theater. It soon becomes clear that the first half of the "Tale of Cinema" is the short film that Tong-su has just watched, as part of a retrospective of the work of a peer from film school. The filmmaker has fallen ill and his classmates are having a get-together to raise money for his family. Tong-su doesn't seem interested in going until he runs into Yong-sil, the actress from the short film, who has had some success in the intervening years. He stalks her for a while, and eventually introduces himself. The life of this wavering and distressed young man strangely echoes the one of the young man from the beginning.
South Korean auteur Hong Sang-soo generally tells the same story twice, and his work often involves people working in the film industry. His sixth feature, "Tale of Cinema", follows this pattern.