Park Hae Jin Does the Kama Sutra or the Sweetest Story Ever Told is an allegory of what many people go through in life: isolation, survival, fear, love, humor, and having a relationship with mysterious forces in life that seem to control their existence.
The story is about an older American woman swept up in a kidnapping of a young handsome K-drama actor at the Incheon Airport in South Korea. They are both taken and held in a shipping container with no doors or windows. Their source of food, clothing, and entertainment materials come from their kidnappers who survey them from the unreachable ceiling. They nickname them 'the ceiling gods.'
The two of them have cultural and language issues to overcome. Fortunately, the South Korean man, Park Hae Jin, speaks rudimentary English. The older woman is Martha Karr. As they go through several phases in their captivity, they learn to navigate their way through their fear to live their true destiny.
They are suspicious of each other at first. There is only one small mattress on the floor. Every part of the container is visible to the kidnappers above except for the small toilet area. Lights are on all the time. They only have the clothes they were kidnapped in. It seems apparent that only one person was intended to be housed.
The older woman is recently widowed and feels protective of the younger man. She needs to keep his spirits up. She does that through aggravating him, teaching him, exercising with him, drawing maps and pictures on the walls, playing games, and singing. They are trapped there for months. She gives him the occasional hug and he reciprocates. There are some goodnight kisses.
Things escalate. They ask for some darkness to be able to regulate their days and to have sex. The ceiling gods figure out what's going on. Hae Jin and Martha ask for a copy of the Kama Sutra to come up with a sex scene that they could trade for their freedom. Astounded by the book, and to protect their own dignity, they abandon the idea and just ask for their freedom. Mysteriously their captors release them.
Their love has set them free. Despite their age differences, they marry. They adopt two children and live together happily until Martha dies at age 87. Their captors are never found.
