Direction: Kim Yong-hoon
Country: South Korea
Beasts Clawing at Straws is a gritty neo-noir thriller that runs fast and twisted. In his first feature-length film, director Kim Yong-hoon adapted Keisuke Sone’s Japanese novel of the same name, depicting its relatively complex interconnections between characters with positive results.
The story, told in six chapters, revolves around a lost bag of money highly coveted by the indebted people that come across with it, including a former restaurant owner turned into bathhouse clerk (Bae Seong-woo), an insidious customs officer (Jung Woo-Sung) and his wild and merciless ex-girlfriend (Jeon Do-yeon ), a violent loan shark (Jung Man-sik) and the gut-eater assassin who works for him (Bae Jin-woong).
Brutal violence occurs but not in an exaggerated extent, and you can indulge in a trillion betrayals and scams, aspects explored in a way that are truly emblematic of the genre. Well-shot with apt camera angles and filled with energy, the film has no dull moments despite of its many dull characters.
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