In the novel, the pickpocket Sue is lured away from a bustling thieves" kitchen in London to the countryside with the promise of a share in a soon-to-be-stolen fortune; in the film, seamstress Sook-hee is hustled off into a rainstorm on an undeclared mission at the house of a rich Japanese recluse, leaving a wailing chorus of women and babies huddled beneath the eaves of their roadside shack.