[3][4] Starring Hwang Jung-min, Yunjin Kim, and Oh Dal-su, it depicts South Korean history from the 1950s to the present day through the life of an ordinary man, as he experiences events such as the Hungnam evacuation of 1950 during the Korean War, the government's decision to dispatch nurses and miners to West Germany in the 1960s, and the Vietnam War.

[2][6][7][8] During the Hungnam Evacuation of 1950 in the Korean War, when thousands of refugees in North Korea were transported south by U.S. naval boats, the child Deok-soo loses his sister Mak-soon.

Deok-soo enlists in the Korean army in the 1970s to serve in the war-torn Vietnam, partly to fulfill his sister's wish for a big wedding by earning enough money to purchase the store from his uncle.

In 1983, when major broadcast stations in Korea run TV programmes in which relatives separated during the Korean War are reunited, Deok-soo is contacted to be featured in one of these shows due to the hope of an elderly man from his hometown who claims to be his father.

The cultural, arts and entertainment fields in Korea have typically ignored labor laws and regulations, where deeply rooted tradition causes young staff members to be overworked yet rarely paid.

[23] By 13 January 2015, it recorded 10,001,709 ticket sales, making it the eleventh domestic film (and fourteenth overall) to reach 10 million admissions in the country's history.

[24][25][26][27][28] In its eighth week of release, Ode to My Father became the second highest-grossing film of all time in the history of South Korean cinema, with 14.2 million admissions.

[2] For its North American run, the film premiered in Los Angeles on 31 December 2014 where it drew over 6,000 viewers after four days of release, mostly first-generation Korean-American immigrants in their fifties and older.

[32][33] The film drew mixed reviews and raised controversy over its alleged attempt to idealize the past under the rule of authoritarian regimes.

"[37] Nostalgia was also believed to be the driving force behind its commercial success, with middle-aged viewers in their forties and older taking up 34.5 percent of ticket sales (despite the film's relative absence of buzz on social media).

"[35][39] An Indian film adaptation Bharat starring Salman Khan, Katrina Kaif and Sunil Grover directed by Ali Abbas Zafar was released on 5 June 2019.