Tik Tok (2016) Review

“Tik Tok” Theatrical Poster

Director: Li Jun
Writer: Xiaoyang Ding
Cast: Wallace Chung, Lee Jung-jae, Lang Yueting, Lee Chae-yeong, Fan Yang, Lumeng Cui
Running Time: 103 min.

By Paul Bramhall

There was a brief moment, not too long ago, when The Thieves made it seem like the prospect of future collaborations between Korea and China was an exciting one. But then efforts like The Bounty Hunters, Reset, and Bad Guys Always Die quickly put paid to that theory. Despite these less than stellar efforts though, Chinese money remains an attractive proposition for Korean producers, which is as good a reason for the existence of the 2016 oddity Tik Tok as I can think of.

Like many of the commercially glossy action movies coming out of China (Switch, I’m  looking at you), Tik Tok is helmed by a first-time director, this time in the form of Li Jun. Filmed entirely on location in Seoul, Jun has somehow managed to enlist the services of Lee Jung-jae, made during the same year he’d also headline Operation Chromite. Lifting wholesale the ‘bomb in a packed football stadium’ plot device from Shiri, Tik Tok is essentially a race against time flick, as our heroes attempt to save the 50,000 people under the stadium roof watching an Asia Cup soccer match. You know Tik Tok is financed by Chinese money, because the match pits a team from Korea versus one from China, and the China one wins.

The culprit responsible for planting the bomb is played by Wallace Chung. Yes the same annoying Wallace Chung that showed up in that other Korea/China co-production, The Bounty Hunters, opposite Lee Min-ho. Here he plays a burn victim, who’s scarred to the point he wears a prosthetic mask, that gets a kick out of high risk gambling. It was his addiction that got him burnt in the first place, however now he’s become psychotic, kidnapping one of the player’s wives and strapping her to a bomb (due to go off if her husband doesn’t score). Thankfully he’s also happy to go to counselling sessions with the resident Chinese psychiatrist, played by Extraordinary Mission’s Lang Yue-Ting, who his brother hired to resolve his issues. The brother is also played by Chung, so if you’re a fan, this is the movie for you. Ultimately Jung-jae and Yue-Ting end up teaming up to find the bombs planted throughout the stadium, and save the day.

Director Jun is clearly a fan of the John McTiernan Die Hard flicks. Within the opening minutes we have Jung-jae frantically wrapping a fire hose around his waist on an upper floor of a high-rise building, and smashing through a window like a Korean version of John McClane. He also has to deal with the inconvenient phone calls he keeps receiving, reminding him that the deadline for him to sign the divorce papers his wife arranged is tomorrow. The overall structure is reminiscent of Die Hard with a Vengeance, as Chung sends our heroes running all over Seoul on the hunt for bombs, that may or may not pose a legitimate threat. You can also swap the Brooklyn human billboard scene, for one in which Jung-jae is forced to don the Chinese team’s jersey in the middle of the Koreans side of the stadium, and walk amongst the fans chanting how much their team sucks. Yes, it’s as tense as it sounds.

I’ll refrain from any Lang Yue-Ting as Samuel L. Jackson comparisons, however it is worth mentioning that like the pairing of Bruce Willis and Jackson, Jung-jae and Yue-Ting also have good onscreen chemistry together. As the smart psychiatrist and veteran cop, their pairing is a pleasant one, and credit should be given for not making Yue-Ting’s role one of the damsel in distress. Her character is just as gutsy as Jung-jae’s, and isn’t afraid to put herself in harm’s way for the sake of getting the bad guy.

What is distracting though is the dubbing that’s used for Jung-jae’s dialogue in Mandarin. In a throwaway line it’s mentioned that his (soon to be ex-) wife is Chinese, a piece of dialogue there for no other reason than to act as a justification for why he can speak the language fluently. Except, it’s not him. Admittedly, in the extended scenes when he only shares the screen with Yue-Ting, it eventually becomes tolerable. However for other scenes (of which there are several), where he has to speak both in Korean and Mandarin, it’s painfully obvious that the latter is completely different to his actual voice tone. Again, the decision is a clear indicator that the main audience for Tik Tok was always intended to be Chinese, with a release in Korea going straight-to-DVD.

While the production obviously wasn’t confident that Jung-jae would be able to deliver the Mandarin dialogue himself, for some inexplicable reason, they didn’t feel that the casts delivery of the English dialogue was an issue at all. Trust me, it is. I have nothing but respect for those who can speak a language other than their own, especially one as difficult as English. But if you’re going to speak it in a movie, well, as a basic requirement the audience needs to understand what’s being said. The main culprits are the Koreans, chiefly Lee Chae-young and Yang Fan, who are forced to deliver some completely unintelligible dialogue that’ll leave many scratching their heads.

Chae-young in particular is ladened with some equally horrendous lines to deliver. In one scene she identifies that a clue left by Chung is a quote from the bible, at which point she reaches under her shirt and pulls out a crucifix pendant, cheerfully announcing, “I am a Christian.” It’s as strange as it sounds. She’s then given a lengthy monologue that explains the meaning of the quote. Or at least I assume it does, because I barely caught a word of it. I can’t help but feel that Jung-jae surely couldn’t have delivered his Mandarin lines any worse, but as the expression goes, know your audience. In fairness the whole script is ropey, regardless of the language. When considering a potential plan to evacuate the stadium, one Korean official refuses, because then “The world will think that Korea isn’t capable of hosting the Olympics.” Hmmm, ok.

My favorite scene though, was one in which one of the bombs not being detonated is dependent on Jung-jae giving the correct answer to Chung’s question. The question is, what’s the name of Cristiano Ronaldo’s son? For a moment, I forgot Tik Tok is supposed to be a tense thriller, and thought it had decided to become a surrealist comedy. It’s a line of thinking that was reinforced when Chung then gives Jung-jae the option to phone a friend, and he proceeds to call his wife. Cue tense scene (see, it’s back on track again now) of Jung-jae arguing over when he’s going to sign the divorce papers, all in front of a murderous pyscho, when all he wants to ask is what’s the damn name of Cristiano Ronaldo’s son!

For all its faults though, Tik Tok’s 100-minute runtime does tick along nicely thanks to Jung-jae and Yue-Ting’s performances. For Jung-jae , it kind of feels like a throwback to the types of role he used to play in the early to mid-00’s, like in The Last Witness and Typhoon. Indeed the whole movie feels like a throwback to a simpler time for action movies, when all you needed was a psychotic bad guy who wants to blow things up, and you didn’t need to worry about any overtly political undertones or hidden subtext. I’d daresay it would make a breezy double feature with Quick, another race against the bombs flick, and there are enough explosions, vehicle chases, and brief flashes of martial arts action to make it an easy way to pass the time.

While it’s safe to assume Tik Tok isn’t going to be on the top of many peoples to-watch list, unless you’re a diehard (pardon the pun) fan of Lee Jung-jae, the best that can be said is it doesn’t commit any unforgivable crimes against the action genre. It even throws in an unexpected twist at the end (then goes a little overboard with another one during the end credits, but we can ignore that), which based on the cast wasn’t entirely unexpected, but still welcome. The one thing I can guarantee, is that you’ll walk away from Tik Tok knowing the name of Cristiano Ronaldo’s son, and hey, maybe that’s enough.

Paul Bramhall’s Rating: 6/10