By Ju-min Park
SEOUL (Reuters) - A wealthy and powerful company chairman swings open the steel door of his family bank vault, revealing tottering heaps of money to the dazzled eyes of his male secretary.
From that beginning, the raw and gritty "The Taste of Money," which was in competition at the recent Cannes Film Festival, offers up an unusually dark take on Korea's chaebol, the powerful family-run conglomerates whose products dominate domestic life and are known around the world.
It comes at a sensitive time for the chaebol, which include names such as Samsung and Hyundai and have ties to everything from smartphones to cars, restaurants and the film industry and are the focus of strong, unwelcome public attention in the run-up to the December presidential election.
As a result, the film, with its premise that wealth is a main determinant of power in South Korea and entrenched corruption is a way of life, almost didn't make it onto the screen at all, said director Im Sang-soo.
"I thought I might not be able to make this movie, but eventually I did. That's a good sign," Im told Reuters, recalling an affiliate of one of the chaebol that withdrew its funds from the movie less than a day after pledging to back it.
But in a sign of how extensive the conglomerates' reach is, Lotte Entertainment, part of the retail giant Lotte Group, is the film's distributor, and some of the funds used to film it came from chaebol-linked firms.
Though the chaebol are usually portrayed in film and television as powerful and elegant people, under Im's lens they live luxurious but corrupt and morally bankrupt lives.
"That's not what the audience expects. On TV dramas, the chaebol are mostly glamorized, or they just play some pranks and that's all," said film critic Kim Young-jin, who is also a professor at Myongji University. "But he spit on them."
YOUNG IDEALIST
"The Taste of Money" centers on the character Joo Young-jak, a secretary to chaebol head Yoon. Joo is an idealist who tries to fight the deceit and corruption around him but is soon lured into the chaebol's schemes, becoming an unwitting henchman.
Starkly shot and laced with profanity, the film shows members of the chaebol family engaging in sex parties, bribing prosecutors and even committing murder.
"I don't think anybody from so-called (chaebol) 'royal families' have read my scenario. Many Young-jaks in the middle must have been agonizing over investing in the film, worrying whether they should report this to them or not," Im said.
But public opinion has chilled towards the business groups, which are seen as the main winners in a political compact under dictator Park Chung-hee that catapulted South Korea from poverty to rich nation in a generation without giving back to society.
Park, in power from 1962 to his assassination in 1979, openly encouraged chaebol to amass economic power and near monopoly control in return for lifting Korea out of poverty.
When asked if the chaebol were moral in a recent poll by a think-tank linked to the ruling pro-business Saenuri party, 74 percent of respondents answered "negative."
Im said Young-jak represents ordinary Koreans, whose thinking has been distorted by the chaebol's pervasive power.
"People like us are depicted as Young-jak in the movie. If he, who is the star employee of one of Korea's top chaebol, cannot preserve his own dignity, it means all the Korean people are living like that," Im said.
The film, which has been sold to the United States and the United Kingdom, may have hit a nerve. It has been seen by more than 1 million people in this nation of 50 million since its May 17 premiere, according to the Korean Film Council.
Though Im acknowledges that the movie may be tough for ordinary Koreans to watch, he urges people to face reality.
"After removing the make-up, when we look at the 'real' us, it may be hard and uncomfortable to watch. And we might worry about whether things would ever get better," he said.
"But no matter how troubling it is, we can fix it only when we see ourselves."
(Editing by Elaine Lies and Bob Tourtellotte)
http://rock947.com/news/articles/2012/jun/13/raw-gritty-film-takes-on-koreas-powerful-chaebol/
Review – The Taste of Money
Following the memorable remake film “The Housemaid,” director Im Sang-Soo returns with his “kind of a” sequel film “The Taste of Money”. The movie is currently screening in the competition section at the Cannes Film Festival that should draw more interest to the film. There’s also an “adult” version of the trailer, which probably raised a few more eyebrows due to the explicit nature of the clip. Meanwhile, the movie itself lives squarely in the world of Korean chaebol (conglomerate) families, who wield enormous power in Korea. How firmly the movie is rooted in reality is hard to say, but with scandals that have rocked chaebol families over the past decade it’s probably safe to say the movie isn’t pure fantasy.
In “The Taste of Money” actor Kim Kang-Woo plays main character Young-Jak. Young-Jak is an idealistic young man, grounded with morals and educated from a top university. Nevertheless, he works as a personal assistant to one of the most powerful figures in the country. His boss gained his power by marrying into the wealthiest family in Korea. That man’s name is Yoon (Baek Yun-Shik). Yoon lives with his domineering wife (Yeon Yeo-Jung), who wields the real power in her family, and their two children. Older daughter Na-Mi (Kim Hyo-Jin) shares some of Young-Jak’s idealism and a similar sense of right and wrong. On the other hand, her younger brother Yoon Cheol (On Joo-Wan) takes after his mother and holds the view that anything can be a bought for a price. When the father, Yoon, decides to leave his family behind to live with his Filipino housemaid the family faces a crisis, while Young-Jak steps into his boss’s vacated role and gets a first hand taste for money.
A lot of people will ask is “The Taste of Money” a sequel of “The Housemaid”? The answer is … kind of, but not really. Kim Hyo-Jin plays Na-Mi, who shares the same name as the young daughter in “The Housemaid”. At one point in “The Taste of Money” she even tells her mother “… remember the housemaid that burned herself? You shouldn’t treat people that way.” A clear reference to Jeon Do-Yeon’s character in “The Housemaid”. There’s also Yoon Yeo-Jung who appears in both films, but appears to play different characters. Interesting enough, power resides on the husband’s side of the family in “The Housemaid,” while power resides squarely on the wife’s side in “The Taste of Money.” Making things a little trippier, at one point in “The Taste of Money,” the family’s television set shows the film “The Housemaid.”
Additionally, “The Taste of Money” seems rooted in other past Im Sang-Soo films. Specifically, similar themes and story structures can be found in “A Good Lawyer’s Wife” and “The President’s Last Bang”. Structurally, “A Good Lawyer’s Wife” deals with a dysfunctional family, with the husband’s infidelity providing the catalyst to the movie’s storyline. The same can be said of “The Taste of Money”. Thematically, “The President’s Last Bang” shows how power corrupts the country’s elite. The same can be said of “The Taste of Money”. These similarities actually turn out to be a slight handicap for the “The Taste of Money”. The movie doesn’t have the first mover advantage as Im Sang-Soo’s prior films and also lacks the edginess found in those prior mentioned films. As a result, “The Taste of Money” feels slightly hollow. Surprisingly, what “The Taste of Money” does have more of is humor. The movie is sprinkled with humorous moments that bring out snickers or laughter, at least with the Korean audience I watched the film with. The scene that drew the loudest response is the scene where Kim Kang-Woo is called into Yoon Yeo Jung’s bedroom (he makes sure to button up his shirt all the way before entering her room). With that said, the humorous moments are mere embellishments to the movie and not the core of the film.
The success or failure of the movie’s core is murkier. Central to the movie’s success is how well the movie’s theme on “power corrupts” translates into a memorable story. I think with the abundance of past drama series, movies and real life events that have already painted tales of how power corrupts, “The Taste of Money” really needs more character development and drama to win over the audience. Conflicts related to the main character and the husband does provide some of that, but it comes in small enough doses where I have to wonder if Im Sang-Soo focused a bit too much on the stylistic structure of the film and not enough with the script. Ultimately, “The Taste of Money” turns out to be a solid film, but a solid film that feels slightly underwhelming when it’s all said and done.
Film Credits: http://asianwiki.com/The_Taste_of_Money