Even more than most wars, the Korean War left its legacy of loss and disappointment; the peninsula was divided, arbitrarily separating families from each other and from their roots. In 1983, Korean television aired a show in which estranged families were actually reunited; understandably, the program was viewed by some 88% of the population. What happened off the air is the theme of Gilsodom, a fictional exploration of one family's hopes and disillusionment with reunification. Hwayong (portrayed with subtlety by the fine Korean actress Kim Ji Mi) is flooded with memories while watching an episode of the reunification program. The painful loss of her parents, her youthful love for the boy Tongjin (Sin Song Il), and the birth of her child are recounted in flashback. Though securely married, Hwayong locates Tongjin, from whom she was separated by the war and who has since fallen on hard times; the two set out to find the son who was lost to both of them. But the young man they meet is far from every parent's dream. More than a moving account of war and separation (veteran director Im Kwon Taek won the World Peace Medal at the 1986 Chicago International Film Festival), Gilsodom (the title, the name of a North Korean town, also means "homeland in the mind") poses a haunting question: if the two Koreas do reunite, will they still know each other?