水原小学四年级学生禹荣达的父母出门经商半年没有来信，荣达靠祖母每天捡破烂挣来的钱勉强生活着。祖母生病，无法支付3个月学费的荣达没有去学校。他朋友的姐姐贵兰把米送到了荣达家，班主任田代老师也来家访，把学费交给了祖母。但是房东把那笔钱拿去顶了房租，所以荣达又不能去学校了。祖母问荣达， 能不能去平泽的姨妈家取学费。
早上荣达很早就乘牛车出发，在居酒屋取水，走了6里（约20公里）的路，平安到达了平泽的姨妈家。第二天，荣达拿到了学费和大米坐公共汽车回来，跟祖母打了招呼后，就跑到学校交学费。田代老师让荣达看了同学们为他攒钱的友情箱，说今后不要担心学费，要好好学习。荣达从学校回来的时候，收到了父亲的来信，信上说母亲生病了所以没能联系荣达，同时还寄来了一个装有钱、衣服和鞋子的包裹。农乐队过盂兰盆节期间，荣达的父母回到了故乡。

Synopsis
August 1945. Choe Han-jung (Jeon Chang-keun) is a Korean freedom fighter who is serving time in prison after being betrayed by Japanese collaborator Nam-bu (Dog Eun-gi). He succeeds in escaping from prison and takes refuge in the home of Hye-ja (Hwang Yui-hee), who is a nurse at a university hospital. Han-jung's underground organization proceeds with its plan for an armed uprising, but Park (Kim Seung-ho) gets captured by the Japanese military police on his way back from acquiring dynamite. Han-jung rescues Park and hides out in the apartment of Nam-bu's girlfriend Mi-hyang (Yoo Kye-seon). While giving Han-jung shelter, Mi-hyang falls in love with him and goes to the basement housing Han-jung's underground organization in order to purvey information and funds. However, she is followed there by Nam-bu and the military police, who shoot and kill her. Han-jung is also wounded and moved to the university hospital. Hye-ja, who has secretly been in love with Han-jung, helps him to escape from the hospital while the military policeman on guard has dozed off.
Notes
"A full-fledged dramatic film made with the participation of representative figures in the Korean film industry immediately after the liberation of August 15, 1945, Viva Freedom! is a significant film in the history of Korean cinema in that it takes the anti-Japanese struggle and the restoration of Korea's independence as its main subjects." (Chung Jong-wha)
Viva Freedom! is one of the earliest dramatic films to be made after Korea regained its independence in 1945. Two figures who represented the Korean film industry during the Japanese colonial period, Jeon Chang-keun and Choi In-kyu, wrote and directed the film, respectively. In addition, the film enjoyed the participation of Han Hyeong-mo, who had returned after studying cinematography in Japan; Kim Seong-chun, Korea's first-generation lighting director; and Yang Ju-nam, the first editor in the history of Korean film. At the time of its release, it also enjoyed tremendous commercial success thanks to the response of an audience still elated by the nation's recent liberation. Viva Freedom! affords glimpses into both the thematic consciousness of the time and the early interest of Korean cinema in the question of genre. Viva Freedom! deals with the themes of resistance against Japanese rule and the fight for independence using the generic conventions of the melodrama and the action movie. That is, if the relationship between freedom figher Han-jung and the two women who love him proceeds according to the plot conventions of the melodrama, the chase and gun fight scenes involving the Japanese military police, for which the technique of cross cutting was attempted, demonstrate the visual characteristics of the action movie. While Viva Freedom! is important for its historical value as a film about national independence, it is also interesting as an early example of the action-melodrama in Korean film history.