How to Steal a Dog

HOW TO STEAL A DOG focuses on the troubles of Ji-so (Lee Re), an 8-year-old Korean girl living with her mother and younger brother in a van, waiting for the return of the father who abandoned them. Their desperation and embarrassment prompt Ji-so to come up with elaborate plans to raise money sufficient to buy a home. She settles on stealing a rich person's dog for a reward. She, a classmate, and her brother Ji-suk (Hong Eun-taek) target the dog of a fancy restaurant owner (Kim Hye-ja), an older woman who also has suffered a loss. A subplot involves real estate fraud and a greedy nephew hanging around to inherit from his unsuspecting aunt. Ji-so nabs the restaurant owner's dog and stashes it in an alley, where a cheerful homeless man with only three fingers on one hand befriends her and suggests that homelessness can also represent a kind of freedom from social expectations. Repeating humiliations pile on each other. At one point the mom pretends she's been given a rundown, cob-webbed place to stay for a month by an old friend who is away. When she and the kids return to the home the next day, the place has been locked by the landlord, who has left signs to discourage squatters and trespassers. All the subplots merge as the nephew's scheming is exposed and the girl's conscience presses her to return the dog and confess her crime to the owner. The mom starts her own business and the kids do their best to support her and make peace with the absence of their father.