As the sexual, financial and criminal shenanigans get ever more complicated, absurd and melodramatic, the film becomes increasingly tiresome; it’s not even possible to enjoy its excesses in a ‘so bad it’s good’ way.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
The New York Times by A.O. Scott
Even as The Taste of Money swerves toward a frantic climax and a sentimental denouement, it remains intriguing. It feeds an insatiable curiosity about how the other half - or, in current parlance, the 1 percent - lives, and what it shows us is gorgeous, grotesque and disconcertingly human.
Slant Magazine by Andrew Schenker
For all the revelations about the way the rich operate, there's little juicy pleasure to be had in the proceedings.
A gloriously decadent, gorgeously photographed melodrama – a movie where people burst into tears and act very badly towards each other, all while wearing really fabulous clothes.
Im could care less about these people as characters, presenting them as either obscenely hot or repellently decaying bundles of flesh.
The Guardian by Peter Bradshaw
It is a strange slo-mo farce, well directed, highly sexualised – shallow, but sleek.
Im Sang-Soo’s exposé of a Seoul family corporation is stymied by a humourless regurgitation of observations about power, corruption and lies.