"Peppermint Candy" spans 20 years in the life of one man, Yongho, from his callow teens to his fraught and self-hating middle age. Called up for military service in 1980, he has the misfortune to be part of the force sent to quell the popular uprising in Kwangju-which means he is involved in the Korean equivalent of the Tiananmen Square massacre. Emotionally and psychologically blighted, he joins the police after leaving the army and becomes an expert in torturing arrested leftists. He brutally rejects the childhood sweetheart who has come looking for him, bringing the peppermint candies because he used to love them. The film's seven chapters are presented in reverse-chronological order, so it begins with Yongho's middle-aged death wish and ends with his first date with the only person he ever really cares for...