mmuchall Review of A Taxing Woman's Return

A Taxing Woman's Return (1988)

Mega-Spoiler Ahead: Only Read After Watching Movie

[7/10 · 18 February 2005]

Although some of the acting & situations were a little contrived this movie was enjoyable and is definitely worth seeing. However, it took a 10 minute discussion with my Japanese wife and a review of the first and last few minutes to really make sense of the ending which is, in some ways, vaguely similar to 'The Usual Suspects'. As far as we could tell, the opening scene where a group of men are sharing a meal of crab features some powerful politicians, one of whom appears later (with sideburns). These politicians are the real power brokers with the 'Minister' shown in the last few moments possibly being the top guy. They want to cash in on the Real Estate deal around which the plot of the movie takes place but don't want to get their hands dirty. The boss of the religious cult is several rungs on the ladder below them and they only try to kill him so that the audit trail doesn't lead to them. So the Cult leader pays the tax but gets to keep an even more secret valuable legacy in his grave. Meanwhile there's not enough evidence to implicate the high ranking 'Minister' at the end while the two guys discussing the Land Deal are bankers, aware of the 27 billion cost of making the land available and the 10 billion profit that was made when the land was resold to the Insurance Company, much of which presumably ended up in the pockets of the politicians involved. Hope this makes sense! It's what we thought was going on but we could be wrong.