Joyful Mystery: August 1950. The fortunes of three impoverished friends and their families abruptly change after an airplane crashes in a nearby mountain. They rush to the crash site along with all the villagers, not to help the victims but to plunder their valuables. A dead American passenger carried a large amount of money in his briefcase, which Mesiong, Ponsoy, and Jamin find and avariciously keep for themselves. But the town mayor gets greedy and, with his hirelings, abducts the three to divest them of their booty.