Beasts Clawing at StrawsMovies like Beasts Clawing at Straws
- Key Features:
- Crime, Thriller, Money, Desperation, Intertwined stories, Moral ambiguity, Greed, Violence-high, Twists and turns, Korean cinema, Mystery, Survival
- Tone:
- serious, suspense-driven, gritty
- Target Audience:
- Crime thriller fans, Korean cinema enthusiasts, Viewers who enjoy complex narratives, Suspense lovers
- Emotional Arc:
- Desperation → Suspicion → Betrayal
Beasts Clawing at Straws

A struggling restaurant owner, caring for his sick mom, finds a bag of cash in a sauna locker, while a customs officer gets into trouble when his girlfriend runs off with money he borrowed from a loan shark.
Beasts Clawing at Straws
A woman, fired from a financial corporation during the Asia crisis, returns home with no money. However, she finds a box with a fortune in front of her door, and decides to keep it. However, the people that left it there soon want it back.

A criminal, a bank clerk and a police officer find their destinies entwined when a loan shark gets assaulted after having withdrawn $10 million from the bank in the midst of the world financial crisis.

Two rival detectives with different methods try to solve the murder of a missing girl after discovering her mutilated body in the tidelands of Incheon.

A fishing-boat crew takes on a dangerous commission to smuggle a group of illegal immigrants from China to Korea.

The 'Beast Cop' Ma Seok-do heads to a foreign country to extradite a suspect, but soon after his arrival, he discovers additional murder cases and hears about a vicious killer who has been committing crimes against tourists for several years.

A debt collector who looks intimidating, but actually has a warm heart, ends up becoming the guardian of a child, who has been left behind as collateral by her illegal immigrant mother.

When an old collaborator gets severely injured, a veteran policeman tries to figure out the way to bring to justice the ultimately suspected aggressor, a spoiled young executive, heir to a mega corporation, who believes he is above the law.

A black comedy about the events that are set into motion in a town after a man-eating boar goes on a rampage.

Jang Tae-Young is a popular trouble shooter in the criminal world. He is cold and ambitious. He dreams of building a casino hotel one day. A reporter then goes to Jang Tae-Young.

Sang-hoon is a lowlife gangster, a debt collector exercising thuggish ways to collect his money. The recipient of nothing but anger since his childhood, he expresses himself through violence. When he finally encounters someone who can stand up to him, feisty school-girl Yoon-hee they become unlikely friends.

A shady cop finds himself in over his head when he gets caught between Internal Affairs and the city’s corrupt mayor.

A loan shark is forced to reconsider his violent lifestyle after the arrival of a mysterious woman claiming to be his long-lost mother.

On the run from a dogged internal affairs agent, a corrupt cop reluctantly teams up with a defiant teen to unravel a conspiracy before it's too late.

After trying to cover up a car accident that left a man dead, a crooked homicide detective is stalked by a mysterious man claiming to have witnessed the event.

Joong-ho is a dirty detective turned pimp, who's in financial trouble as several of his girls have recently disappeared without clearing their debts. While trying to track them down, he finds a clue that the vanished girls were all called up by the same client, whom one of his girls is meeting with right now.

A corrupt customs official joins forces with a vicious gangster to form the most powerful crime partnership in Busan.

The assistant of a wealthy socialite reveals her husband's salacious affair. The fallout entangles him in a web of sex, love and deceit that could threaten his life and career.

All unemployed, Ki-taek's family takes peculiar interest in the wealthy and glamorous Parks for their livelihood until they get entangled in an unexpected incident.

Sang-hyun is always struggling from debt, and Dong-soo works at a baby box facility. On a rainy night, they steal the baby Woo-sung, who was left in the baby box, to sell him at a good price. Meanwhile, detectives were watching, and they quietly track them down to capture the crucial evidence.

From a mountain peak in South Korea, a man plummets to his death. Did he jump, or was he pushed? When detective Hae-joon arrives on the scene, he begins to suspect the dead man’s wife Seo-rae. But as he digs deeper into the investigation, he finds himself trapped in a web of deception and desire.

Four young men want to leave their dystopian world behind and go to a distant paradise to execute a money robbery, a daring act that will have unexpected consequences.

An undercover cop has his loyalties tested when the boss of the corporate gang he's spent years infiltrating dies.

A wily safecracker is forced to help a mob boss pull off a $150 million heist, but smells a double-cross in the works.

Two wealthy businessmen are about to get away with $5 million in ill-gotten money until their plans are revealed by an uninvited house guest.

Jun-oh, an insurance claims agent, faces off with a client who he suspects of committing murders with the intention of collecting insurance premiums.

'Monster Cop' Ma Seok-do investigates an illegal online gambling business led by a former STS Baek and an IT genius CEO Chang. Ma proposes an unexpected alliance to Jang and begins hunting down the criminals.

Sung-soo has everything a man could want: a beautiful wife and children, a comfortable home and luxury car, and plenty of money in the bank. When he learns that his estranged brother, Sung-chul, has gone missing, haunting memories of their troubled past urge him to visit his brother’s apartment in search of answers.

Tae-su, a detective fighting organized crime, returns to his hometown for his high school friend Wang-jae's funeral. There, he meets his old friends Pil-ho, Dong-hwan and Seok-hwan and they reminisce. Suspecting something fishy about Wang-jae's death, Tae-su and Seok-hwan start investigating it, each in his own way. Their investigations lead to a land development project that Pil-ho is directing.

Kim Sun-woo is an enforcer and manager for a hotel owned by a cold, calculative crime boss, Kang who assigns Sun-woo to a simple errand while he is away on a business trip; to shadow his young mistress, Hee-soo, for fear that she may be cheating on him with a younger man with the mandate that he must kill them both if he discovers their affair.

A small-time thug who collects debts for the local triad is torn between his criminal aspirations and his devotion to family.

An honest cop has to compromise with his principles when he is told to find a scapegoat for a high-profile serial killer case in exchange for a big promotion.

To nab a sales manager who's at large after murdering his family, a detective investigates the man's colleagues, who seem to be hiding something.

A Korean man in China takes an assassination job in South Korea to make money and find his missing wife. But when the job is botched, he is forced to go on the run from the police and the gangsters who paid him.

Soo-hyun, scammed by a broken washing machine, exposes the seller online. In retaliation, she's stalked and harassed, her life spiraling into chaos as her privacy vanishes and her home becomes unsafe.

Detective Nam-soon goes undercover with her partner Detective Ahn to investigate the counterfeit money. She discovers that one loyal henchman, Sad Eyes, a beautiful swordsman with a pale, blank face, is related to the truth. Nam-soon and Sad Eyes confront each other in a series of duels and become confused between love and obligation to duty.

A doctor finds himself in the middle of an unsolved serial murder case after discovering a secret from a sedated patient. When dismembered bodies show up close to home, he must solve the riddle before the killer realizes what he knows.

A disgruntled henchman teams up with an ambitious prosecutor to bring down a leading presidential candidate and the news editor behind him who is truly pulling the strings.

Bok-Soon runs a street stall, cares for her younger sister, and is feared by many because of her quick temper. When Tae-Soo murders her sister, rage consumes her completely as she stalks the killer.

Under the Han River lives Crocodile, a rugged member of the lumpenproletariat who exists from schemes and stealing. His position as a scavenger of society undermines South Korea’s boasts of its newfound economic position as an Asian Tiger. One day, Crocodile finds a girl floating in his river.

Go-ni tries his best to worship Pyung Gyung-jang as his teacher, and promises to stop gambling after winning his money back. But people's desires are endless.

A detective accidentally kills a man and disposes of the body to protect his career. The next day he sees that someone has hanged the corpse from a crane for all to see. He takes charge of the murder investigation to protect himself and find out who did it.

When JW becomes a drug runner in order to maintain his double life, his fate becomes tied to two other men: Jorge, a fugitive on the run from both the Serbian mafia and the police, and mafia enforcer Mrado, who is on the hunt for Jorge.

A former professional baseball player becomes entangled in loan-sharking and mob connections after a fixing scandal ejects him from his sport. When his girlfriend vanishes he is forced to confront his mentor and enter a deadly battle.

A group of swindlers unite to hunt down an infamous con man who was known dead, amid their hidden motives and deception.

A teenage girl is captured by a giant mutated squid-like creature that appears from Seoul's Han River after toxic waste was dumped in it, prompting her family into a frantic search for her.

People binge eat and suffer from extreme thirst, which leads them to go crazy for water. They cannot control themselves because they are brainwashed by a parasite.

A woman suddenly disappears. Her fiance then sets out to find her and, in the process, uncovers layers of dark hidden secrets.

After a traumatic event, a drug trafficker turns sides and conspires with a dangerously ambitious undercover police officer to bring down the mysterious kingpin of a major drug cartel.

A restaurant owner going over the edge when an armed robbery is attempted at his establishment. He holds everyone captive at gunpoint – criminals and customers alike – and situations corrode into a nightmare state, guided by manipulation and raw compulsion.

With no clue how he came to be imprisoned, drugged and tortured for 15 years, a desperate man seeks revenge on his captors.

After barely surviving a brutal attack by a sadistic serial killer, crime boss Jang Dong-su is left humiliated. Determined to catch the killer known as K, he forms an uneasy alliance with Jung Tae-seok, a relentless and incorruptible detective who often disrupts his illegal business. However, while Jang Dong-su wants K dead, Jung Tae-suk is determined to bring him to justice. With a deal in place—whoever finds K first will decide his fate—the hunt begins, blurring the lines between crime and law.

Korea’s biggest network marketing scam reveals a far greater network of corruption and conspiracy lurking underneath.

Agent Lam (Tony Leung) sets out to track a pair of plates used to make fake American dollars. When he discovers the plates, they are conned out of him by enigmatic US Embassy workers Owen (Richie Ren) and JJ (Shu Qi). With the trail now leading to Korea, Lam sets off in hot pursuit. There, amidst the dangerous and glamorous urban landscape of Seoul, Lam finds himself confronting an underworld crime boss known as the Polar Bear, head of the biggest counterfeiting organisation in Asia.

A woman's past as a convict follows her everywhere and because of this she doesn't open up to others. But then she strikes up a friendship with a broken child who has suffered from domestic violence and decides to save the girl from the cruel world. A man who holds feelings for the woman, tries to protect her in his own way.

Kyung-jin, a police officer who finds herself chasing down a suspected bag-snatcher on her day off. However, the man she catches turns out to be Myungwoo, a passer-by who was himself trying to apprehend the real criminal.

Only one week left until South Korea will go under sovereign default. Han Shi-hyun is a leader of the monetary policy team at the Bank of Korea. and is assigned to a crisis team.

A working single mother comes home one day to find that her daughter and the nanny have disappeared -- and this is just the beginning of her nightmare.

Two boys are becoming real adults during a turbulent time as they experience a world that doesn't go their way.

A stranger arrives in a little village and soon after a mysterious sickness starts spreading. A policeman is drawn into the incident and is forced to solve the mystery in order to save his daughter.

A biker is forced to deliver a ticking time bomb by a mysterious caller who has put an explosive helmet on his ex-girlfriend.

A contract killer becomes disenchanted with his line of work and spares the lives of his two latest would-be-victims. But the assassination company he works for has no intentions of letting him quit.

When a wife becomes the breadwinner of her family after her husband loses his job, adultery becomes part of her life.

A woman's child is kidnapped and killed after paying the ransom. 15 years later, a mysterious figure is seen visiting the site of killing and another kidnapping occurs using the same methods. The woman teams up with a detective to catch the killer once and for all.

A son to a high-ranked official in North Korea commits a series of murders going across the countries around the world. The movie depicts the following events as South Korea, North Korea and Interpol start chasing down after him.

A man is on his way home when the poorly constructed tunnel he is driving through collapses, leaving him trapped leaving himself for the unexpected whilst emergency services struggle to help.

An idle part-time college lecturer is annoyed by the yapping sound of a nearby dog. He decides to take drastic action.

Jeong-yoon and Jong-bae own a car body repair shop together that gets in financial trouble. To help cover the losses and take care of her family, Jeong-yoon decides to smuggle thirty kilograms of cocaine.

A deaf man and his girlfriend resort to desperate measures in order to fund a kidney transplant for his sister. Things go horribly wrong, and the situation spirals rapidly into a cycle of violence and revenge.

Detective Woo is on the trail of the mysterious gangster Sungmin, a master of disguise who always manages to elude his pursuers. Eventually, the cop tracks down and confronts the master-criminal in the suburbs of a coal-mining town.

Jake and Sunti go to meet Mongkol, the leader of the Abu Karaf. Mongkol confirms that ever since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, Jantapan has worked to corner the narcotics and arms markets. Jake must engage in a battle that will put both his physical and spiritual powers to the ultimate test.

On his way to work, a bank manager receives an anonymous call claiming there's a bomb under his car seat, and if anyone exits the car, it will explode unless he can pay a ransom.

A stroke of good luck turns lethal for Sam Phelan and his wife Leslie when they are faced with a life-changing decision that brings strange and sinister Pyke Kubic to their doorstep. As Pyke leads Sam and Leslie on a tumultuous adventure through the streets of Chicago, each are pulled deeper and deeper into a desperate spiral of deception and violence – all in the name of money.

After a high-ranking North Korean official requests asylum, KCIA Foreign Unit chief Park Pyong-ho and Domestic Unit chief Kim Jung-do are tasked with uncovering a North Korean spy, known as Donglim, who is deeply embedded within their agency. When the spy begins leaking top secret intel that could jeopardize national security, the two units are each assigned to investigate each other.

A man meets up with two "good guys" to recover what is unlawfully his, taking them on his whirlwind ride, doing things they never would have imagined, just to survive.

A disillusioned Seoul woman visits a remote island to reconnect with a childhood friend, only to find her trapped in an oppressive cycle of physical, mental, and sexual abuse. As tensions escalate, the situation spirals into a harrowing tale of survival and retribution.

Two cops, R and Noma, hunt down renegade cyborgs. Cyborgs are used as commandos by the military, as lust objects and for companionship. Normaly they have a limited lifespan of three years but black market technology is being developed to be able to transfer a cyborg's artificial intelligence into human host. This drives R to find a suitable host for his expiring cyborg Ria.

A former RAW officer, who is among the hostages in a mall taken over by terrorists, has to foil their plans and prevent the government from releasing a dreaded terrorist, who he had helped put in prison at great personal cost.

A special agent is assigned to protect a wealthy business magnate. However, when the businessman is kidnapped in a daring ambush, he teams up with a seasoned detective to crack the case. But soon he discovers the case isn't that simple.

After being kidnapped as a small child and raised by the five men who abducted him, a teenage boy is now forced to join their life in crime.

Detective Cho, a cop on the edge, is mourning his mother's recent death while under investigation for graft; on top of that he is suddenly put in charge of a seemingly-impenetrable mystery.

A young Korean man surpasses his difficult childhood by becoming a powerful prosecutor, but soon learns that real power comes at a price.

The story revolves around three members of a police surveillance squad conducting an investigation into a financial investment group involved in criminal fraud. The focus of the plot, however, is actually on the three officers themselves who stumble upon an opportunity to capitalize on information they gathered during their surveillance.

A pimp enforcer takes revenge on a woman who rejected his advances by tricking her into prostitution, but complications arise.

A mother lives quietly with her son. One day, a girl is brutally killed, and the boy is charged with the murder. Now, it's his mother's mission to prove him innocent.

Consumed by jealousy, a woman takes an extreme step and undergoes surgery for a new face. Although her lover of 2 years misses her, he falls in love with the new face, not knowing it's the same woman.

Forensic pathologist Kang is assigned to examine the dismembered corpse of a female murder victim. Detective Min points to a fanatic environmentalist, Lee Sung-ho, as the primary suspect. But when Kang’s daughter is kidnapped, a manipulative game begins between Kang and Lee, who holds secrets about the homicide case.

Ex intelligence agent Ki-heon is tasked with safely transporting Seo Bok, the first ever human clone, who holds the secret of eternal life. Several forces try to take control of Seo Bok to serve their own agendas.

Life has not been kind to drinking buddies Sam, Fai, and Mok as they struggle to make ends meet, until one stormy evening a mysterious old man appears before them in a bar with a 'get rich quick' scheme: an ancient treasure is buried under a high-security government building.

Backed into a corner by mounting debts, a youth agrees to submit himself to a high stakes game of chance in international waters aboard a disused warship.

Five men plot to steal a large sum of money from the local yakuza, but everything does not go as planned and the men find themselves hunted down by contract killers.

Tadek, a Polish detective, becomes suspicious of a controversial author when the incidents described in his unpublished novel resemble the inner workings of an unsolved murder.

Beleaguered police detective Nishi takes desperate measures to try and set things right in a world gone wrong. With his wife suffering from leukemia and his business partner paralyzed from a brutal gangster attack, Nishi borrows from a yakuza loan shark and then robs a bank to clear his debt.

A family decides to buy a lodge in a remote hiking area. Their first customer commits suicide and the distraught family buries his body to avoid the bad publicity. But their luck gets worse, the bodies start piling up, and the family becomes frantic to rectify the situation.

What will be her last straw? A devastatingly bad day pushes a hardworking single mother to the breaking point — and into a shocking act of desperation.

Based on true events, the movie tells the story of two men who want to start a scooter business but don't have the required collateral for a bank loan. Then one of them runs into a former flat neighbour who offers to lend them the money. The guy turns out to be a thug and starts to extort them. Their life goes downhill from there.

Two North Korean soldiers are killed in the border area between North and South Korea, prompting an investigation by a neutral body. The sergeant is the shooter, but the lead investigator, a Swiss-Korean woman, receives differing accounts from the two sides.

Sam and Fordy run a credit card fraud scheme, but when they steal from the wrong man, they find themselves threatened by sadistic gangster. They need to raise £5m and pull off a daring diamond heist to clear their debt.

A young man believes that his country's leaders are actually toxic reptilian aliens sent down to launch a takeover of his beloved Earth. So he decides to abduct them and force the truth out on camera in his basement that doubles as a film studio and torture chamber.

Hong Gil-dong is an infallible private detective with an exceptional memory and quirky personality. While chasing the only target he failed to find, he gets entangled in a much bigger conspiracy than he bargained for.
