It re-tells the origins of the famous Korean folktale Chunhyangjeon from the perspective of the male protagonist Lee Mong-ryong's servant.

Bangja escorts his master Mong-ryong to an evening out at the local pleasure house, where they are witness to a performance by the madam's daughter Chunhyang.

Mr. Ma begins to coach the simple, honest Bangja in the ways of seducing women, which Bang uses to secure a picnic outing for Mong-ryong with Chunhyang through Hyangdan.

During the excursion, Bangja so astounds the ladies by cooking meat to perfection, recovering Chunhyang's slipper from the waterfall pool, and carrying her on his back after she injured her ankle, that a love triangle rapidly begins to form between the two women and Bangja, much to the consternation of Mong-ryong, though he boasts that he is slowly luring Chunhyang to him by playing hard to get.

When Mong-ryong is called away to Seoul to finish studying and take his exam he asks Bangja to recover a written promise he gave Chunhyang about marrying her.

Later, during a celebration, the magistrate is seen in a back room attempting to sexually excite Chunhyang because Mong-ryong had told him that she would only bow to his wishes and fulfill his desires if he were violent with her.

Bangja is visited in his cell, first by Mr. Ma, who warns him to never beg a woman to stay, then by Chunhyang, who reveals that she and Mong-ryong planned the whole event after he returned from his exams.

The last scenes are of people in the village where they lived, the times when she entertained guests at her house with her singing, and of her shoe in the ice below the waterfall where he saved her.