1980年5月，動盪肅殺的韓國光州，一個無名英雄最動人的故事…… 「要去光州？請放心！我是最優良的司機！」 漢城計程車司機金萬燮（宋康昊 飾）在老婆病逝後獨力扶養女兒，他胼手胝足樂天勤奮，為了償還妻子生前的龐大醫藥債務，唯一能倚靠的就是一台老舊的計程車。某日，一攫千金的良機來到眼前，萬燮聽說只要能載一名外國乘客（湯瑪斯科瑞奇曼 飾）前往光州，並趕在宵禁前回來就能撈上一筆。 開心上路的萬燮不知道這位外國乘客原來是德國的調查記者，也不知道乘客前往光州的真正目的。一場意外的偶遇，讓平凡的小人物萬燮，即將一腳踏入歷史巨流的暴風核心之中。
南韓光州在 1980 年發生大屠殺事件。26 年後，三位受害者的親戚聚首，打算報復惡名昭彰的主謀。
韓國雙十二政變的五個月後，中餐廳「和平飯店」在光州開幕，老闆是哲洙的爺爺，餐廳是他一生的心血；哲洙的媽媽幫忙招呼客人，叔叔雖然常常像個孩子，但他比任何人都更愛家人、更在乎餐廳。5月18日光州民主化運動開始，離家的爸爸倉皇跑回家，尾隨的軍人指控爺爺窩藏共產黨，這個平凡家庭被捲入了歷史的漩渦…
在千禧年前夕，金英浩（薛耿求飾）依約到了年少時同伴們的河邊聚會，他們曾在這裡各自訴說夢想，也是金英浩與暗戀已久的初戀情人尹順林（文素利飾）擁有最美好回憶的地方。但景物依舊，金英浩卻完全變了一個人，他在過往朋友們眾目睽睽下，站到了鐵軌上尋短，痛苦大喊：「我想回到過去！」。故事以他的死亡開始倒敘展開，五年前、十多年前、二十年前…曾經意氣風發的少年歷經風霜，命運的峰迴路轉讓他成了自己不想成為的人。
血淚悲壯的歷史之路。光州計程車司機姜⺠宇和高中生弟弟姜振宇，兄弟倆因父母雙亡，過著相依為命的平凡日子。在教堂彌撒時，⺠宇邂逅了護士朴申愛，隨著日子兩人的愛意漸長。5月18日凌晨時分，光州集結了大批空降部隊，進行大規模的祕密調動。此時，⺠宇約申愛去看電影，然而街頭⺠眾抗議全斗煥上台的聲浪，持續擴大，充滿劍拔弩張的氣...
A young girl is caught up in the 1980 Gwangju massacre, where Korean soldiers killed hundreds, if not thousands, of protesters who opposed the country's takeover by the military the year before. Flashbacks show the girl seeing her mother shot to death in the massacre. The film spurred the Korean public to demand the truth behind the incident, and their government eventually opened previously classified files on the massacre.
Activist Hyun-woo is released from prison after a 17-year stint. Journeying back to the village where he spent some time as a fugitive he recalls the time spent with Yoon-hee, a woman who gave him shelter and companionship.
20 years after discharge from the army and now an excavator driver, a former paratrooper who had been mobilized to suppress the May 18th Democratic Uprising in Korea in 1980, happens to find a skull in the ground one day. Driving his excavator, he pays visits to his former superiors one by one and realizes they were all both assailants and victims of the times.
1980, Kwang-ju is fired up about a genius pitcher, a senior in high school. Ho-chang takes confident strides across the field making his way by cutting through the sand dust. He’s a university scouter on a mission. His task is to scout the genius pitcher, SUN Dong-yeul, a master of baseball who may be scouted to a rival university. But he is no where to be seen. But Ho-chang is determined to not let down his reputation as a successful scouter, and his scouting mission of 10 days begin! An original story of a scouter on a 10 day mission full of undisclosed history will now unfold!
In May of 1980, the city is locked down and phone lines are dead because of protests and struggles in demand of democracy. Just when Gwangju was being ignored by the media, Jurgen Hinzpeter, a reporter from Germany, sneaks in despite the danger!
There are people whose lives have been shaken by the 'Gwangju Video'. On May of 1980, the course of their lives changed in front of a huge wave of truth in Gwangju. The people who made and spread the 'Gwangju Video' are also the people who had their bodies on the waves. The hidden stories of these people, the 40th anniversary of the Gwangju Uprising, and the pursuit to trace the missing 4 hours of mass shooting will be revealed for the first time.
This is the story of a father who died mysteriously in May of 1980, a mother who lives in the shadows with a bullet in her head and not being able to forget May 18th and their daughter, and the nation's greatest comedian, Hee-soo.
Cheol-gi who dreams of a society that embraces justice begins classes at a night school. There he learns about political and social contradictions and the realities the people face. While doing research on factory conditions with his classmates Tae-il, Min-sook and laborers Hyun-sil and Bong-joon, Cheol-gi learns about the Revitalizing Reforms system and the improper practices in emergency measures. After the military revolution, during the election for a general student body in a move towards democracy, Cheol-gi unwittingly becomes a man on the run when emergency martial law is implemented in response by the government. Cheol-gi blames himself when hears about the deaths of Tae-il and Min-sook during the Gwang-ju Uprising from Hyun-sil and Bong-joon. Just when he and Hyun-sil try to start a new life together, Cheol-gi is arrested and put in jail. Inside the prison, he starts another move towards prison democracy.
1980年的光州事件，是南韓民主運動史上最慘烈的抗爭；但2015年，前軍方官員卻指控現場影像中的某人，實際上是北韓派來煽動的間諜。一時引發軒然大波，憤怒的受害者們甚至打算提出告訴，然而照片裡這位「金君」究竟是誰，卻無人可以作證。導演追訪當時參與民眾，宛如偵探般抽絲剝繭，逐步逼近金君真實身份同時，也為光州事件記憶的空白處，填補進最溫熱的血肉。
Chae-geun is a driver for hire with manic depression. He often talks to his son who is studying in the States and tells him he would keep his promise. He does a favor by acting as a temporary fiancé of a single woman named Jin-hee, who works as a waitress at a restaurant he frequents. Her father, who was a victim of the Gwangju Uprising in 1980, shows him a gun he stashed away 39 years ago and asks Chae-geun to help him exact revenge on those who were responsible for the May 18 incident.
After the Gwangju Democratization Movement is terminated by brute force, Jong Soo runs from the authorities and goes to Dongducheon in search of Tae Ho, an older neighbor from his hometown. He is a student at Jeonnam University and a night school teacher who is on the run because of his involvement in the Gwangju Movement.
This year is the 30th anniversary of the Gwangju Democratization Movement. Though the country commemorates the event as the official historical records, it does not include any 'real' accounts of the people who experienced it firsthand. The students who were part of the movement; the female vendors who made rice balls for the students; the female high school students cooked at the government building; now, past their middle age, they live as ordinary citizens in Gwangju city. How is the event remembered by these people?
The title Good Light, Good Air is oddly paradoxical. Keenly working at the point where his artistic identity and persistent attention on modern Korean history meet, director Im in this film focused on where the history of oppression and struggle intersect between Gwangju and Buenos Aires. In both cities, a great number of people who fought against the dictatorship were slaughtered and disappeared. The people of both societies still live with that trauma. When the testimonies of the victims of the two cities cross over, the film gives us chills as the eerie history of the two is very similar. Through Good Light, Good Air, director Im asks us how we will remember the past from where we stand right now.
The movie is a compilation of the movie "Wilderness" in which a member of the airborne unit who killed a girl during the Gwangju Democratization Movement burned himself to death with remorse and "Mr. Kant's Presentation", the story of a man who wanders around as a result of torture after participating as a civilian army.
The South Korean city of Gwangju, will commemorate the May 18th 1980 uprising in style. They will stage a grand re-enactment of the scenes of the May uprising 25 years earlier, when martial law troops killed civilians, including women and children.