Beasts Clawing at Straws: Jeon Do-yeon stars with a pair of legs sticking from tub.

What is it that will ultimately draw the following four characters together: the misfortunate maintenance man at a men’s sauna, a crooked customs officer, the resilient boss of a glittery nightspot, and the battered B-girl she takes under her wing? Narcotics? Nope. The other drug: money — in this case, a sizable Louis Vuitton bag stuffed full of it that has passed through more hands than a cloth napkin. We won’t know which of the Beasts Clawing at Straws stashed the bag in a locker until almost three-quarters of the way through the picture, and the identity of the ultimate beneficiary will remain a mystery until seconds before the curtain shot. That leaves the viewer ample time to try and crack this nifty Korean thriller.

It’s while making his nightly rounds that bathhouse custodian Joong-man (Bae Seong-woo) happens across the locker with the loaded valise (stealthily deposited in a silken long take), and he quickly places it in storage, hoping no one will claim it. It must be tough having a boss who’s a stickler for promptness, particularly if you’re in the habit of being late. Joong-man blames his home life — his wife (Jin Gyeong) wages a daily battle with a demented mother-in-law (Youn Yuh-jung) — but the boss will have none of it: the next time he arrives so much as a minute late, Joong-man is on the unemployment line.

Port officer Tae-young (Jung Woo-sung) has a different set of worries, chief among them Mr. Park (Jung Man-sik), a lender-of-last-resort who refuses to take anything which causes him displeasure for an answer. (We arrive at Park’s warehouse fishery just in time to witness the body of a previous defaulter being carted off.) Tae-young cries victim, blaming the nonpayment on the MIA girlfriend for whom he cosigned a loan. He’s so relieved when Park grants a week’s extension that he gives the foreboding goon a friendly nudge, which is rather like trying to thaw an iceberg with a Bic mini. First time director Kim Yong-hoon sets the neo-noir lighting knob in Tae-young’s apartment to “expressionistic,” thanks to the neon jungle street view that flickers outside his window.

The reason Mi-ran (Shin Hyun-bin) works the nightspot won’t be spoiled here. Suffice it to say that the illegal immigrant she befriends on the job insists on playing Galahad, and the diverting Double Indemnity excursion he leads us on is a case of right tire treads, wrong corpse. It’s one of several times that Yong-hoon traffics in black comedy while taking us on this amusing greedy-go-round. We’re also introduced to her boss, club owner Yeon-hee (Jeon Do-yeon), as an angry customer’s slap to the face is met with a beer bottle to his head. She’s number one on Mi-ran’s speed dial, the one she calls at the first sign of trouble, and the one who offers the felicitous advice that one murder is hard, but two are easy.

Occasional blasts of gratuitous violence belong in another movie, as do some of the films more reachable moments. A former classmate of Tae-young’s turned cop, and the touchy-feely familiarity he brings to the role, borders on Columbo. And from what I read, Joong-man’s mother had much more to do in the novel upon which this is based. There’s a touching scene between mother and son towards the picture’s close, but other than spewing bile, her sole function here appears to be causing her son to show up late for the job. And given the exposed nature of sitting naked in a pool spa, wouldn’t Mi-ran notice the mural-sized shark tattooed on the boss lady’s leg before Yeon-hee exited the water?

It will take a good hour for the bouncing time-frame to stabilize (and even longer for the director to remove his Tarantino training wheels). Still, it’s a wild, multi-character ride that’s rife with energy and style, complexly knotted with an ending as simple as it is satisfying. ★★★★

Video on Demand New Release Roundup

Random Acts of Violence — Why is there an offscreen narrator reading aloud the comic panel dialogue boxes that open the show? Perhaps because, after two decades spent lending valuable support to brash teen comedies, Comic-Con staple Jay Baruchel (Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, She’s Out of My League) —here acting for the first time as producer, writer, director, and star — knows his audience. For the farewell issue of Slasherman, author Todd (Jesse Williams), his publisher/investor Ezra (Baruchel), and their respective womenfolk, Kathy and Aurora (Jordana Brewster and Niamh Wilson) decide to hit the promotional trail; call it a working vacation to promote a successful comic book based on its eponymous and still-active serial killer. Determined to add a little “medicine to the sugar” that Ezra considers essential to appeasing the fan base, Todd soon learns the hard way that it’s always best to write the ending first. There was a flash — around the time a radio interviewer accused the author of hero-worshipping a psychopath and lionizing male violence — when the prospect arose of Todd as a modern day dime novelist, a Ned Buntline chronicling the 200-mile spoor of a serial killer and the trail of corpses left in his wake. The thought lasted long enough for the film to come to be precisely what it argued against. 2019 — S.M. ★

The Secret: Dare to Dream — I was working the night watch out of North Park’s long-defunct Citizen’s Video when The Secret first revealed itself to me. My curiosity was piqued, but it took months before I finally got it. Not “got it” in the sense of understanding. (What do you take me for?) Rather, “got it” in the sense of “the DVD couldn’t stay on the shelf long enough for me to take it home.” When I did finally sit down to watch it — well, at least the 40 minutes I was able to get through — it called to mind Disney’s The Flying Mouse and its message of, “Do your best, be yourself, and life will smile upon you.” The Silly Symphony preached a similar “laws of attraction” message, and it did so in one-tenth the time! This time ‘round, with Hurricane Hazel about to make landfall in Louisiana, former scientologist Katie Holmes trades in one cult for another to star as Miranda, a widowed mother of three trying to make ends meet selling fresh seafood. Enter Bray (Josh Lucas), a stranger passing through town and carrying a manila envelope outfitted with a conspicuous red wax seal, as though pressed by the ring of Richard the Lionheart. A college professor who minored in carpentry shot down my first complaint by quoting Einstein’s, “Coincidence is God’s way of remaining anonymous.” But this modern-day Clarence has a sadistic streak. Through a series of mishaps, the envelope gets misplaced. Bray knows the contents, and rather than tell Miranda the good news, he lets her suffer. A shamelessly feel-good romance competently strung together by Andy Tennant (Ever After). You’d do best to watch it as the top-half of a double-feature with the Doris Day rom-com It Happened to Jane. 2020. — S.M. ★