She gives Jin-tae unreasonable lot of money to make him help her with those two punks who searched for Moon Ah-jung's phone. For instance, where did this money get from?? Wasn't she supposed to be very poor??
At first I even thought, it was fake money made by her friend who corrected photos, but well, unfortunately, money was painfully real. So im confused. Otherwise great movie.
She practices Chinese medicine i.e. acupuncture illegally under the radar.
shareCorrect me if I'm wrong:
1) at the beginning of the movie she couldn't afford to pay for a Mercedes side-view mirror;
2) when Jin-tae demands money for false accusation of him, she can only give him very little money, which he accepts (it looked like her last money to me).
And then all of a sudden out of nowhere comes a solid chop of notes, right in time when it's so needed - to pay Jin-tae to beat up those softheads. Feels a bit stretchy to me, please, convince me I'm wrong.
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very good question... i have the same question too...
shareI don't feel that's her last money. I think she is lying to Jin-tae. I just think women will not put all their money in one place at home (fear of theft), if they don't have savings in the bank. If that's really her last money, she can borrow from neighbors with interest bearing. May be this is common among neighborhood in rural town in Korea though I am not sure.
shareIt wouldn't have been thaaat much money. 100 of those bills is less than $1,000US, so I doubt she gave him as much as 5 grand.
She also could have been being crafty when crying poor all the time. She wouldn't tell her son how much money she has, as he'd be apt to extort it all out of her and blow it. No way she would be on the up and up with him about their financial situation - particularly with her distrust of the company he kept.
Most Korean men know their wives have more money stashed away than they claim to. I wouldn't even put it past them to borrow money even when they don't really need to (to protect/conceal their hidden savings). So, I wasn't really surprised when she produced that chunk of change. Though I did think about it, it seemed quite plausible, and I would still consider her quite poor - if five grand is your life's savings at her age, you know you've had a rough go of it.
so she starts to investigate after jin tae tells her that she needs to find the killer herself. she starts going to little kids to ask them about rumors about moon ah jung and she also sets up shop in her home so that she can hear neighborhood ladies talk about moon ah jung etc while she does the "chim"/needle thing. i would say it's safe to assume she did this more than the one time that was shown in the movie, and it is also safe to assume that received money for her services bc she had the money after her investigations.
sharethe fat stack of bills were all ones. Therefore, the stack was maybe $100 total.
shareFirst off, the movie takes place over four years. The mother owns a herb shop, and does acupuncture illegally.
She got the money to repay the Benz window by borrowing the money from the photolab lady. Remember the two scenes she is in, she is trying to get pregnant.
Tae-Jun wants 5000, which is five times as much as the Benz window. She gave him her stash (could or could not be all of it), and then repaid the rest of it in cash and then asked him to do the interrogations.
When she was with the school kid she was giving away coins, so not much there.
She can't afford a lawyer, so I'm assuming they don't get one. She hired the expensive lawyer anyway until he could get the son off for four years in the institution, then fired him afterward.
It's not that big of a stretch.
I'm not sure where you got the impression it took place over four years. (If it was because the son got released, remember he was released because they thought they caught the "real" killer.)
shareIt didn't take place over 4 years. But I think I know where the "4 year" idea got planted.
The lawyer in the karaoke bar scene suggested to mom that "Remember world cup 2002? Then world cup 2006? 4 years is not a long time, it passes in an eyeblink" (and I could see this one coming a mile away)...
...as a segue to suggesting that she plea bargain to a 4 year stint at a psych ward. Then in later scene, she tells her son she fired the lawyer.
Is that what that calendar says in the ragman's house? Cause I couldn't find any other indication that it took place durin four years. The youngsters still went to school and looked the same, the alcoholic mother hadn't collapsed without her daughter's support, the crazy guy(JP) was on the run the whole time and had a blood stain fresh enough to sample, and the climate didn't really change. I thought it might have been a couple of weeks/months.
If dolphins are so smart, how come they live in igloos
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Lol..No, it did not take place over the course of 4 years. In the scene at the restaurant the lawyer tells her that 4 years in a mental institution would go by quickly. Mother fires him after that.
You can hide things in vocabulary.
We see Mother early in the film asking that photoshop girl (the one who wants to get pregnant) to loan her money.
I just assumed that's where she got the cash to pay Jin-Tae.
videodeathray.com
The fat stack of bills to pay Jin-Tae were "man-wons" or 10000 krw bills about 9$ each bill, so I'm not the best with the eye ball test but I'm guessing she followed through and paid the full $5K to Jin-Tae.
In Korea, they dont really have a social security system so people have to work until they're older, or never really retire doing businesses or what not and need to save. My math's not good, but I'm guessing mother lived extremely frugally and saved and so working 40+ years, spending little money, on 2 jobs even in a rural town I think she would be able to save several thousands of dollars.