The seemingly peaceful life of Mi-heun, a middle-class housewife in her thirties, falls to pieces when a young woman unexpectedly visits her home and calls her husband ‘honey.’ After that night, Mi-heun starts to suffer from a headache of unknown cause, which isolates her from the outside world. One day, she runs into In-kyu, a married man from her neighborhood, who proposes to her a ‘sex game’ effective only until one of them falls in love with the other. From then on, the two of them become helplessly entangled in a web of passion.
 Ardor is a ‘women’s film’ that depicts adultery from a different perspective: it focuses on the dynamics of women’s desire and the process of self-discovery. The film shows how ‘immoral’ temptation and passion bring psychological turbulence to a woman’s mind, and inscribes everlasting aftereffects on her body. It also shows how she is left with a vital feeling of ‘self-satisfaction’ after the passion has subsided.
 The haunting atmosphere of Butterfly Ville, where most of the film is set, and the stillness of the dark blue waters off of southern Korea, are the backdrops that at times embraces, at times propels, the catastrophic intoxication of the woman and the man. The delicately choreographed and exquisitely shot sex scenes brilliantly yet heartbreakingly portray the liberated bodies and souls of the couple. (Joo You-shin)