Two middle-aged Japanese men, a hubristic musician and his stoic companion, travel the Southern coast of Korea. They fall into an ambush set by a tribe of wild Korean children, who mistake the musician for their long-awaited Mountain God.

"The Troubled Troubadour" belongs to the road movie genre, but it also carries elements of comedy, fantasy, western and allegory. Structured along three movements (going nowhere, having noone, being nothing), the movie borrows from several belief systems, mythologies and legends: Greek (Charon and the Styx), Norse (boat funeral), Germanic (the Pied Piper from Hamelin), Korean shamanism (the Mountain God, the Five Directions God), Korean buddhism (the monk Wonhyo drinking from a human skull) and American blues (Robert Johnson, the devil at the crossroads). The use of these local myths enhances the lyrical, poetic tone of this peculiar yet timeless story about a man confronting his own death.

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