돈의 맛 Do-nui Mat (The Taste of Money)

Cannot understand why this film was in competition at 2012 Cannes and only assume that organizers invited film because the success of Im Sang-soo's previous film Hanyeo (The Housemaid) but maybe they didn't watch film before the invitation. Can tell you that this movie is no sequel to The Housemaid and maybe can be considered as a parallel story told from a male point of view.

According to what I read Im Sang-soo mentions that while The Housemaid was about the women, The Taste of Money is about the men. Indeed we can say that lead is one man, Joo Young-jak ( played by Kim Kang-woo), but his performance absolutely is diminished by one woman Baek Geum-ok (played by Yoon Yeo-jeong) that in my opinion steals the movie to make it her own. So, to me this was another women story that unfortunately was not as interesting as The Housemaid story; still, what both movies have in common is a soapy melodramatic story.

Somehow I imagined that story was going to be a melodrama, so no surprise to be right; but I was expecting great visuals as good as in The Housemaid. Trailer and stills promised that could be similar but NO was not similar as this movie moves inside another high class house that was not as great as in The Housemaid. In other words, set design quality was inferior here; so no matter how the camera moved, visuals were not that much impressive. If you have a so-so repetitive story plus inferior visuals then movie becomes less interesting and more mainstream entertainment.

Film tells another "power corrupts" story but here is more clearly stated by showing how elites are above the law, which maybe if director explored more this story film would have been a bit more memorable. Instead he chose the path of presenting the so common dysfunctional family where husband cheats, wife gets mad and seeks revenge, start killing people and ends like nothing happened, everything is back to normal.

Film is also marketed because the sex scenes but again can assure that scenes are nothing special and a lot tamer than in The Housemaid, so if you wish to see film for this reason maybe you'll be disappointed. As you can see comparisons between both films are inevitable but if you have not seen The Housemaid maybe you will enjoy this film, still have to suggest you watch The Housemaid instead of this one. Sigh.

Watched the complete film and is okay to kill sometime and have an average entertainment moment.

Enjoy.

Watch trailer @MOC