Review by
Benjamin Poole
Directed by: Kim Yong-hoon
Starring: Jeon Do-yeon, Jung Woo-sung, Bae Sung-woo, Yun Yuh-jung, Jung Man-sik,
Jin Gyeong, Shin Hyun-been, Kim Jun-han, Jung Ga-ram, Park Ji-hwan, Heo
Dong-won
Here’s one for you: what would you do if you chanced upon a heavy looking
bag, which, upon further investigation, turned out to be stuffed full of
used bills? I bet you’ve already thought about this, though, and how you’d
play it. The exact shade of nonchalance you would affect as you pick the
bag up, the careful scope of the surrounding area for prying eyes, and
then finally fantasising over what you’d spend the happenstance fortune
upon (I always envision spending it on similarly illegal stuff for some
reason - like putting hits out on my enemies. Corruption really is a
slippery slope!). But I’m here to tell you: don’t pick up the bag. Put it
back. Leave it alone. If there is one thing I have learned via crime drama
it is that nothing good ever comes from taking that illicit holdall.
Pulp Fiction (ish), No Country for Old Men, A Simple Plan (my favourite, based on the imperial source
material by Scott Smith. Please Mr Smith, all I want for Christmas is for
you to write another gut-wrenching novel instead of strangely paced films
for Keanu Reeves). Oddly enough, in American cinema, plots where
protagonists get money through other ill means - gangsterism, stock
exchange shenanigans (cf. the works of Scorsese) - balance morality tale
telling with aspirational glamour. Perhaps within American cultural
mythologies, so deeply entrenched in capitalist ideologies, the idea of
just chancing upon a fortune is anathema: fair or foul, it must be earned.
In the opening sequences of the South Korean (a country defined by its
diametric opposition to the North’s communist regime)
Beasts Clawing at Straws (writer/director
Yong-hoon Kim), that fateful kitbag turns up again, this time in
the mottled heraldry of Louis Vuitton and located stuffed in a sauna
locker by already defeated desk clerk Jung-Man (Sung-Woo Bae), who
begrudgingly works there. Jung-Man is given a hard time by his bullying
employee, has a sick mother who assaults his partner, and lives in a house
that is falling apart. I mean, come on, he deserves a bit of luck, doesn’t
he? No way, Jung-Man. Sorry, I don’t make the rules of the bag trope: I
just enjoy watching the simmering fall out caused by it.
And what a resplendent example of that moral darkness is
Beasts Clawing at Straws! The jigsaw narrative splits into three main fragments following a
connected series of characters, all held together in that bulging Vuitton
knock-off: the compromised Jung-Man, a customs agent Tae-young (Jung Woo-sung) in hock to violent loanshark Mr. Park (Jung Man-sik), and (in
the best story) Mi-ran (Shin Hyun-been), an escort whose client
offers to murder her abusive husband so they can split the insurance
money.
Yes, there’s nothing especially ‘new’ here, but the non-linear
storytelling arranges the crossovers and coincidences in a way that gives
them an urgency and freshness. Yong-hoon Kim also presents these
recognizable elements with a knowing sense of fun, allowing us to guess
where the familiar iconography and archetypes will lead...
It is also rather beautifully filmed with thick neon-noir colour stylings
and a running motif of water: dense rain, spa dates, the ocean. To expound
the metaphor, certain characters are also named after fish. This latter
aspect is especially telling, as a concurrent theme is characters chowing
down on various sea food, either in classy joints or at the (amazing
looking) street food stands that dot the city; the film’s visual language
informing us always of the democratic, Darwinian nature of crime and
violence. In Beasts Clawing at Straws no deed, good or bad,
goes unpunished, but it is so cheerful in its utterly cynical view of the
world that you cannot help but thrill along with it all.
But seriously, best to leave that bag alone in the future, yeah?
Beasts Clawing at Straws is on
Curzon Home Cinema from August 6th and UK/ROI Digital from August 23rd.