Introduction
The Taste of Money is an erotic thriller released in 2012, written and directed by Im Sang-soo. He’s known for his earlier film, The Housemaid, and is viewed by many as a companion piece. The film features a powerhouse cast, including Kim Kang-woo, Youn Yuh-jung, Baek Yoon-sik, Kim Hyo-jin, and On Joo-wan. It deeply explores the toxic interplay of power, wealth, and insatiable desire among South Korea’s ultra-wealthy elite.
The film unfolds a world that ranges from lavish houses to shady corporate boardrooms. It reveals wealth’s ability to cause emotional numbness, rot morals, toxic outcomes reign, and cold, crushing lethality. The Taste of Money is visually stunning and thematically scathing, exposing the dark side of prosperity with icy precision.
Plot Summary
The film follows Joo Young-jak (Kim Kang-woo), a personal secretary for the Yoon family, who are among Korea’s richest and most shady business tycoons. He is in charge of the personal assistant for the family’s patriarch as the head of the corporate empire, he is rather unforgiving. His spouse, Baek Geum-ok (Youn Yuh-jung), is the power behind the curtain as the head of the corporate empire and fiercely shrewd. Their daughter, Nami (Kim Hyo-jin), is mostly disillusioned and bored while Chul (On Joo-wan), their son is reckless and devoid of morals.
Even with a subordinate rank, Young-jak becomes deeply embroiled in the family’s web of secrets and manipulations. He facilitates foreign investors like American businessman Robert Altman with splendid extravagances and in return, he acts as a vital go-between in the family’s corporate success. Young-jak also engages in covering up scandals and shady business dealings.
The family’s internal rot reaches its peak when Chairman Yoon starts an affair with Eva, a young Filipina housemaid. Geum-ok, the wife, discovers the affair and retaliates by seducing Young-jak, further drowning the household in chaos.
When expanding upon the family’s infamy by having Eva murdered, Geum-ok utterly destroys the moral boundary. The Chairman, overwhelmed by guilt and despair, decides to take his life. Young-jak, emotionally devastated and disillusioned, seeks to cut off family influence. The only display of genuine remorse comes from Nami, who assists in escaping to the Philippines, suggesting the faintest shred of new hope.
Main Characters and Their Selected Roles
Joo Young-jak (Kim Kang-woo)
Even though Young-jak is compromised, he remains the film’s moral compass. He begins his narrative as an idealized and obedient employee, deeply motivated by the company’s success and by the promise of wealth. Kim Kang-woo’s performance illustrates a man literally coming apart at the seams, due to the unraveling of his life as a byproduct of ambition.
Baek Geum-ok (Youn Yuh-jung)
Youn Yuh-jung is commanding as the matriarch, coldly and sharply intelligent, emotionally disconnected, and deeply calculating. Her performance is strikingly memorable for encapsulating an archetype of overreaching femininity in Korean cinema. With the bold and icy softness, she has created one of the most unforgettable images of a powerful woman
Chairman Yoon (Baek Yoon-sik)
Yoon-sik’s performance is tragic and compelling as he embodies the now guilt-ridden shell of a once-respected and powerful businessman. His character, while dull and passive, is revealed to be deeply troubled through an affair he later attempts to escape through suicide. In his end, he attempts to find solace from the empire he helped build.
Nami (Kim Hyo-jin)
Nami is the family’s quiet and passive chronicler. Her slight moral protest, which counterbalances the film’s overarching cynicism, is quiet and unassuming. Kim Hyo-jin portrays her with poise, keeping a graceful and restrained presence.
Chul (On Joo-wan)
The character Chul manifests the lavish life of a second-generation rich kid. He is both arrogant and reckless. Chul’s downfall in the film epitomizes the fact that privilege combined with a lack of direction inevitably leads to self-destructive behavior.
Themes and Symbolism
- The Erosion of Morality by Wealth
The film critiques the concept of wealth and its correlation with the erosion of morals. The family members in the Yoon household depict a rich family who would do anything to keep, garnering and maintaining their wealth. Each person in the family is involved in covering some form of wrongdoing, within a system of abuse, deceit, and moral hypocrisy.
- Sexuality and Control
The film portrays a purely unromantic vision of sexuality. Each character views sex as a means to control. Geum-ok employs her femininity as a means to control and manipulate Young-jak. Chairman Yoon’s relations with Eva reveal a colonial class disparity as one side options purely sexual and devoid of true relationship whilst the other uses sex as soft power control.
- The Acts of Watching and Control
Characters are often put into the role of being watched or watching others. CCTV cameras capturing various forms of cheating. CCTV without infidelity. Within the violent technology driven pursuit of power, privacy is trivialized. The concept of being constantly watched is a corporate idea of a world surrendered to the oppression of hierarchy.
- Generational Decay
The Yoon family’s moral decay can be seen along a spectrum; the father is worn down and self-destructive, the mother cold and uncompromising, the son reckless and chaotic, while the daughter is conflicted. Collectively, they demonstrate a family on the brink of total disintegration.
Direction and Style
Im Sang-soo manages to create a cinematic work that is intensely glamorous yet suffocating at the same time. The polished high society interiors, refined surfaces, and designer clothing mask raw emotions of emptoughness underneath.
The pacing of the film is slow, marked by long silences and dialogue, shot composition, and slow includes tense composition, joint visuals that strengthen glass walls, mirrors, and confined spaces, serve to reinforce themes of observation, and encapsulation.
The score of the film is striking in its absence. Though quiet, the film is oddly discomforting. While cold and detached tenderness during the sex scenes is punctuated, this coldness shines a light on the greater world, the relationships are devoid of any warmth or genuine affection.
Reception
When The Taste of Money came out, it received mixed reviews from critics. Some of the viewers appreciated it for its lavish visuals and the bold depiction of the Korean elite class. Others, however, criticized the film for its melodramatic performances and inconsistent pacing. Although The Taste of Money did not reach the acclaim of The Housemaid, the film’s stylistic subject matter was provocative and received criticism in a good way.
The responses from the audience were split in the same way. Some saw the film as a critique on class and capitalism. Others deemed it emotionally superficial. The film’s exploration of power and privilege remains relevant and continues to generate discussion.
Conclusion
The Taste of Money deeply and chillingly explores the lives of the ultra-rich Koreans. Through emotionally fractured characters and slow-burning narratives, the film highlights the moral decay that comes with wealth, power and influences. The film more than an erotic thriller, becomes a parable for the tragedy of life with unrelenting affluence. With powerful performances from Youn Yuh-jung and Kim Kang-woo, and a director unrelenting in exposing the moral rot behind luxury, the film reveals the harsh realities of a life where the only remaining taste is the unquenchable hunger for riches.
If you like dark social critiques wrapped up in intense and intricate stories, then The Taste of Money will be deeply gripping for you. While the movie might not be easy to digest and lacks traditional heroes, it does have a lasting impact. One that is filled with the extravagant feeling of having everything, with the heavy burden of guilt and the haunting question of “What is the price of having it all?”
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