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The main character of Kim Yong-hoon’s energetic debut is a Louis Vuitton bag full of money, which triggers the worst instincts in those who are temporarily in its possession. For some, the lost bag left in a public toilet brings hope of getting out of debts, for others – an opportunity to get rid of an aggressive husband. In six dynamically unfolding chapters, Kim Yong-hoon multiplies desperate characters whose fate, thanks to the bag’s going the rounds, complicates even further instead of improving. The director, like his award-winning fellow citizen Bong Joon-ho, demonstrates a class conflict which destroys the Korean society. “Beasts Clawing at Straws” humorously plays with the thriller convention. The film is sometimes compared with the best films of the Coen brothers and Quentin Tarantino. However, in this desperate game the most important thing is to stay alive because, as an old woman’s saying goes, if you have two arms and two legs, you can start everything anew. The film is an adaptation of the Japanese writer Keisuke Sone’s novel.

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