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Barking Dogs Never Bite (Flandersui gae)
Ko Yun-ju, an unemployed academic, lives in an apartment complex with his pregnant wife Eun-sil. He is struggling to become a professor and grappling with his strained relationship with Eun-sil. Searching for the barking dog of one of his neighbors, which is driving him crazy, he finds an unattended Shih Tzu. He tries to drop the dog from the roof, but hesitates and is stopped when an old woman comes to dry radishes there. He takes the dog into the basement and, being unable to hang it, locks it inside a cabinet.
Park Hyun-nam, the lazy bookkeeper and custodian of the apartment complex, longs to be famous like a bank teller she and her friend Yoon Jang-mi saw on TV, who was rewarded for stopping a robbery. A little girl comes to Hyun-nam with flyers she wants to hang up in order to find her missing dog, the Shih Tzu. Yun-ju continues to hear barking, and sees the old woman from the roof with her Min Pin, the actual source of the noise. He reads on the flyer for the missing dog that it was unable to bark because of a throat operation. Realizing his mistake, he goes to the basement at night to free the dog from the cabinet, but hides when a janitor arrives. Yun-ju watches in horror as the janitor pulls out the dead Shih Tzu and prepares to cook and eat it.
The next day, Yun-ju disguises himself and sneaks up on the old woman and steals her dog. Hyun-nam witnesses him throw the dog off the roof. Seeing an opportunity to achieve her dream of gaining fame, she chases Yun-ju, never seeing his face, but is knocked unconscious when she is hit by an opening door, and Yun-ju escapes. The old woman comes to Hyun-nam with "lost dog" flyers, and when Hyun-nam shows her the Min Pin's body, she faints from shock and is hospitalized. Hyun-nam gets the janitor to bury the Min Pin, but he digs up the body and takes it to the basement to make a stew. When he goes to get some seasoning, a homeless man living in the basement comes out and tastes the janitor's food. The janitor comes back to discover his stew is gone.
As Yun-ju struggles to come up with the money needed to bribe his way into a professorial position, Eun-sil, who has lost her job, comes home with a Toy Poodle. She shows more affection for the dog, which she names Soon-Ja (Baby), than her husband, and treats Yun-ju like a servant. While in the park, Yun-ju becomes distracted and loses Soon-Ja. When Eun-sil scolds him for losing the dog, he snaps and accuses her of wasting money. Eun-sil tearfully tells him she bought the dog with a small portion of her severance pay and planned to give the rest to Yun-ju so he could become a professor. Shocked, Yun-ju makes up missing dog flyers and takes them to Hyun-nam, who offers to help him, but he gives up his search after nobody, not even the dog-eating janitor, seems to have Soon-Ja.
While being berated for her sloppiness at work, Hyun-nam learns the old woman died from the shock of losing her dog, her only family, and left a letter bequeathing to Hyun-nam the dried radishes that are still on the roof. When Hyun-nam goes to get them, she discovers Soon-Ja with the homeless man, who kidnapped her, having developed a taste for dog meat. Hyun-nam rescues the dog and the man chases her through the apartment building. Jang-mi arrives and knocks out the homeless man, who is arrested by police, and Hyun-nam returns Soon-Ja to Yun-ju.
Hyun-nam watches a news broadcast about the missing dogs, but sees no mention of herself, leaving her annoyed. Later that night, she finds a drunk Yun-ju on the sidewalk. Overcome with guilt after hearing she got fired for spending time looking for dogs, he confesses he was the man she saw throw the Min Pin off the roof.
Some time later, Yun-ju has succeeded in becoming a professor, though he appears unsatisfied, and Hyun-nam goes on a long-awaited hike in the woods with Jang-mi.