In the final scene of Juzo Itami"s "Marusa No Onna" (A Taxing Woman), the tax cheat Hideki Gondo has been tracked to his lair by the sexy government tax agent Ryoko Itakura (Nobuko Miyamoto). There, next to a giant safe filled with his ill-gotten gains, she asks him what every poor slob wants to know: How does one become so filthy rich?

Gondo (played brilliantly by Tsutomo Yamazaki) knows the game is up. The cops are on their way and, like any man, he can't resist a chance to brag to a woman about his wealth.

"Money is like this whiskey here," he says, holding up a half-filled tumbler. "When it is half-full, you dare not take a drink. Even when the glass is finally filled to the brim, you indulge in not the tiniest sip. Only when the glass is over-full, do you lick the drops which spill over the rim."

What he meant, of course, is that one becomes wealthy by investing, not by spending. The rich invest their money in order to make more; the poor spend it and remain poor.