Jeon Seung-chul’s citizen registration number starts with 125, branding him as a North Korean defector. It is difficult to find a good job and it’s hard to get along with people at church. He is not an ex-convict or a migrant worker, but he is still part of a group that is discriminated against in Korean society. Like the stray dog he looks after, Jeon Seung-chul is a misfit in South Korea’s capitalist society. This is a perspective that has been played out in movies in the past, which makes it seem that [The Journals of Musan] does not go much further than presenting the alienated reality itself. But director Park Jung-bum does not stop at illustrating the external circumstances of the defectors and digs into their inner minds. They criticize capitalism after they are baptized with South Korea’s version of it, yet succumb to the power of money. They deceive and betray each other for money. Being a defector unable to adapt to capitalism alienates them on two different levels. Both the religious community represented by the South Korean church and the authorities that look after them are helpless. (LEE Sang-yong)