O Gosto do Dinheiro

From Korea. Sang-soo Im's brilliant film is about corruption in high places, concentrating on one family and the young gofer who works for them. It looks like a cross between a Scorsese picture and one of Douglas Sirk's '50's melodramas but with more sex and what they get up to makes the Ewings seem like pussycats. It's certainly further proof that Sang-soo Im is a great visual stylist and a master of the widescreen and it's brilliantly acted down to the smallest part. Not as well known as "The Housemaid" but unmissable nevertheless.

This family keeps a roomful of cash stacked eight feet high and the son picks up a $600bn company for $6m but there's always someone richer and they live in fear of being arrested by the bribed authorities or hauled off by their super-rich enemies. Factotum Mr. Joo (Kang-woo Kim, who has a great six-pack) becomes disgusted with his bosses after the lady-boss (Yun-shik Baek?) takes him to bed and, ageing legs in air, orders him to push it in deep, deeper, harder. This becomes a problem with her gorgeous divorced daughter (Hyo-jin Kim) who fancies the pants off Mr. Joo and finally gets him in the end, in the toilet of an international flight. (She pulls her dropped panties back up and says 'Slip it in the side'.) This is a spirited tale of the very rich, and franker than any movie you'll see from the Hollywood dream-machine. We loved it from beginning to end, but apparently it's an acquired taste, to judge by IMDb.

Disappointing.

A sequel, of sorts, to The Housemaid though it is not at all necessary to have watched the Housemaid before seeing The Taste of Money.

Like The Housemaid, the movie has heaps of potential. Family intrigues, corporate corruption, general seediness. The introduction of a new character, Joo Young-Yak, allows for a fresh view on the evil family we met in The Housemaid. Also allows the movie to be watched in isolation.

With this setup, you think that the story should be quite interesting, and initially it is.

However after the good foundation, the movie proceeds to go nowhere. While the family intrigues continue, they don't all make sense. Things just feel contrived.

Ending does nothing to try to tie everything together and is quite pointless.

Performances are decent.

Firstly this is a fairly involving if theatrical satire about money and greed. The angle here is the POV of an employee in a decadent scandal touched weatlhy family. The explicit love scenes are more funny than titilaing especially the one with the old woman and the young man. Kim Kang Woo does an okay job as the employee. Rather surprising elements like the Filipino maid. Some faults. The continuity between scenes is lacking. Seems to jump from character to place rather abruptly. Also the link between the Housemaid and this movie isn't that well written in. Just a mention about the daughter seeing the maid kill herself. But the parents seem to different.

It's a good idea to interpret the magic of money from a specific angle, but it's not very good from the angle of eroticism. Many characters can not see the specific relationship with the main line, such as the old president and his next daughter, Robert, seems to be rigidly embedded in the plot, rather than from the story itself. Eve's opening eyes at the end was a failure, a good realistic thriller. How to say money? People who do not really understand it can't describe its magic and greatness. So the film scratches its head and tail from boots to boots.