Beasts Clawing at Straws

In the opening scene of Beasts Clawing at Straws, a big Louis Vuitton bag is stuffed into a locker. As the end credits roll, we see the same bag again in close-up, but in someone else’s hands. In the time between these two shots, director Kim Yonghoon presents a host of characters in his beautifully constructed crime drama, all of whom are hell-bent on putting the others out of the game. Having gone bankrupt, Joong-Man is forced to move back in with his mother, who has Alzheimer’s. He finds the bag full of money in a locker at a public baths, and sees it as the solution to all his (financial) problems. Customs official Tae-Young is also urgently in search of money, as his girlfriend has run off with the capital he borrowed from a shady moneylender. Mi-Ran has lost a fortune on the stock market and is now working as a 'hostess' to earn it back again. One day, an amorous client offers to kill her violent husband for her. (International Film Festival Rotterdam)