Tai is a fourth grade student whose family owns a claw machine business. He often travels with his father to help with the replenishment and collecting coins from the claw machines. Today is the day to pay for the school camping fees. Tai brings exact coins to school to pay for it. But his teacher asks him to change coins into bills before he pays. Tai is very upset but doesn’t want to tell his father about what happened at school. After school, when they start to work together again, Tai is lurking to find a chance to change those coins into bills himself. Moved to confront the teacher’s authority and unreasonable demand, yet cautious to avoid subjecting his father to the same sense of contempt, the boy does his best to prevent his father from becoming aware of his attempts to change the money. These small intentions exhibit a rare sense of intimacy and are a deeply endearing element of the film.Coin Boy reflects on an event from the director’s own childhood years when as a little boy he attempted to pay for a school excursion with copper coins, only to be abruptly refused by the teacher and asked to pay with ‘paper money’. The copper coins are a vivid metaphor for his father’s hard-earned money, which although quite clearly of equivalent value, are contemptuously dismissed.
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