Tazza: The Hidden Card (2014) Review

“Tazza: The Hidden Card” Korean Theatrical Poster

Director: Kang Hyeong-Cheol
Writer: Jo Sang-Beom, Kang Hyeong-Cheol, Lee Ji-Gang
Cast: Seung-Hyun Choi, Shin Se-Kyung, Kim Yun-Seok, Yu Hae-Jin, Lee Ha-Nui, Kwak Do-Won, Lee Kyoung-Young, Kim In-Kwon, Oh Jung-Se, Park Hyo-Joo
Running Time: 147 min.

By Paul Bramhall

Director and screenwriter Choi Dong-hoon successfully found his niche in recent years with the hugely entertaining ensemble pieces The Thieves, and more recently, Assassination. While both movies clicked with audiences not just on their home soil in Korea, but also internationally, it would be unfair to say that Dong-hoon only hit his stride with these latest efforts. His 2006 movie, Tazza: The High Rollers, made between his 2003 debut with the caper flick The Big Swindle, and his 2009 fantasy action adventure Jeon Woo Chi: The Taoist Wizard, showed the same level of confidence and assured direction that he’d come to be associated with in later years.

Tazza: The High Rollers starred Jo Seung-woo as an amateur player of the Korean card game Go-Stop, who loses his sisters life savings when one of his gambling sessions doesn’t turn out the way he hoped. However, upon discovering he’d been swindled by a group of professional Go-Stop hustlers, he goes on a mission to not only regain the money back, but become the greatest Go-Stop hustler in the land. While the premise sounds like it would have limited appeal outside of Korean shores, thanks to an eclectic cast of characters, made up of a cast featuring the likes of Kim Hye-soo, Baek Yoon-sik, Yoo Hae-jin, and Kim Yoon-seok (who’s featured in every one of Dong-hoon’s movies with the exception of Assassination), Tazza: The High Rollers is pure entertainment from start to finish.

In a brief period of time when the Korean film industry seemed to show a fledging interest in making sequels to some of the productions that kicked off the Korean new wave (2013 also gave us Friend 2, a follow-up to the 2001 classic), 2014 gave us Tazza: The Hidden Card. Dong-hoon decided not to return for the sequel, neither in the capacity of director or writer, so the reins were handed over to Kang Hyeong-cheol. A director and screenwriter known for his warm and fuzzy comedy dramas, notably 2011’s hugely popular Sunny, the prospect of him creating a sequel to Dong-hoon’s original was an interesting one.

The end result certainly lives up to the expectation of being interesting. Most glaringly, The Hidden Card is barely a sequel to The High Rollers at all, at least not in the traditional sense of the word. Choi Seung-hyeon, better known as T.O.P. from the hugely popular K-pop group Big Bang, stars as a street wise kid who likes to gamble. While getting involved in small town skirmishes, Seung-hyeon stumbles across the sister of one of his gambling rivals, played by Shin Se-kyeong, and falls instantly in love with her. Despite barely exchanging a full sentence, Seung-hyeon declares he’s going to go to Seoul, make his millions, then come back to sweep her off her feet. That basically summarises the plot.

The Hidden Card is one of those sequels that does just about everything wrong you can imagine. I’ll start with Seung-hyeon. As a member of Big Bang, he may be worshipped by female fans around the world (or just Asia, I’m not sure), but as an actor he doesn’t really cut it. To be fair, he was suitably effective as a cold blooded assassin in the Lee Byung-hun starring 2009 TV drama IRIS, which mostly involved him delivering intense stares and shooting people. However further attempts to push him as leading man material on the big screen have been less successful, with debatable performances in the likes of the war movie 71 – Into the Fire, and the action flick Commitment. The Hidden Card does him no favours, with one particularly glaring scene playing out as if he’s posing for one of his many photo books, rather than acting in a legitimate movie. The believability simply isn’t there.

Of course the script doesn’t help matters, which is so clunky and unconvincing it feels more like a first draft than a finished screenplay. Seung-hyeon and Se-kyeong have absolutely no reason to want to be together, however the whole concept rests on the fact that Seung-hyeon wants to make enough money to impress her, even though the interest she showed in him during their brief screen time together was minimal at best. When Seung-hyeon falls foul of a gambling gang boss, played with a suitable amount of smarm by Kwak Do-won, and it’s suddenly revealed that Se-kyeong is working for him, it’s supposed to be an epic twist with a heap of emotional punch behind it. However as the script has put zero effort into creating any kind of romantic tension or meaning between the pair, the reaction from most will likely be one of shrugging the shoulders.

After the reveal proceedings veer off the rails into an increasingly laughable series of melodramatic and graphically violent scenarios, which are at complete odds with the initial tone that the movie kicked off with, not to mention the brisk and colourful pacing of the original. Soon Seung-hyeon has had one of his kidneys forcibly removed, and not long after is stabbing himself through the hand, actions which are so ridiculously over the top when considering the context that they’re taking place in, that they result in bafflement rather than shock. The more the cumbersome 147 minute runtime chugs along, the more a distinct impression is formed that Hyeong-cheol has bitten off more than he could chew by taking on this sequel.

In an attempt to at least create some connectivity to the original, along the way Yoo Hae-jin reprises his role, and like in the original with Seung-woo, here he teams up with Seung-hyeon in an attempt to hustle the hustlers. Hae-jin is a welcome presence, as he is in most movies, and whenever he’s onscreen things become a little more bearable, unfortunately though he’s not onscreen nearly as much as I’d have liked him to be. Kim Yoon-seok also reprises his role from the original, shoe horned into the last 30 minutes almost as if the producers thought that his presence would be enough to save everything which has come before (and also give them an excuse to put his character on the promotional material). Indeed while Yoon-seok was only a supporting player in the original, his character was one of the most memorable ones, with a scarred face and a zero tolerance policy for anyone that he catches cheating, his method of dealing with hustlers with a hammer was wince inducing in the best possible way.

Here though there’s the distinct impression he’s simply clocking in for a pay cheque, as his character arrives in the movie for little other reason than to provide his house for one last showdown of Go-Stop. To get to the finale though, viewers will have to endure what amounts to close to an hour of little more than double cross upon double cross, once again exposing a script that appears to be so eager to come across as clever, it forsakes any chance of being fun. By the time the last round of successive backstabbing has taken place, most will have likely given up on caring what takes place during the penultimate game, as proceedings ensure what little investment we did have in the characters is trampled all over in the name of fitting in as many twists as possible.

The Hidden Card saves the last nail in its coffin for the finale, in which all of the key players gather round a table for a game of Go-Stop that raises the stakes to the level of life and death. In a move which leaves a particularly bad taste, Do-won states that to eliminate the chance of anyone cheating, the game should be played naked. Onscreen the suggestion plays out as ridiculous as it sounds on paper, and seems to blatantly be included for no other reason than to have Se-kyeong strip down to her underwear, in a scene which also includes her having to be searched for a hidden card (finally, a connection to the title!). While I’ve no doubt the filmmakers would argue that everyone else in stripped down as well, the camera seems to enjoy lingering on Se-kyeong with a lack of subtlety which come across as exploitative. It speaks volumes that Kim Hye-soo revealed much more in the original, however despite featuring less nudity, the scene in The Hidden Card feels forced at best.

As the closing credits rolled, I was left with a sense of relief that the sequel is essentially a stand-alone story, as had Hyeong-cheol decided to make a direct continuation of Dong-hoon’s original, I’m sure the damage would have been even worse. Like any good hustler, it’s always best to have a few cards up your sleeve, however if Tazza: The Hidden Card was one of them, up your sleeve is probably the best place to keep it.

Paul Bramhall’s Rating: 3.5/10