Well Go USA
For some reason, it seems like there have been a few foreign Guy Ritchie-style crime thrillers in the past year or so. Of course, a mildly comedic, super-brutal thriller that includes poker doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a ripoff or anything. For one, Tazza: One-Eyed Jack is based off a comic by the same name from 2007, whereas Guy Ritchie’s Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels came out in 1999. But really, it’s just a coincidence — just a familiarity more than anything else.
Tazza: One-Eyed Jack comes from director Kwon Oh-Kwang, and is apparently the third in a series of anthology series about the ‘tazza’ in South Korea, which is a word that means gambler (more or less). The film goes through a few mini-genre pieces, separated by the classic title cards introducing each character, although some are basically five minutes long and don’t really seem quite as crucial as the rest.
Park Jung-Min stars as the primary protagonist Doh Il-Chul, a super young guy (seems to be implied he’s a senior in high school) and a bit of a prodigy in the ‘cool poker dude’ role. But early on in the movie, he gets into a bit of jam due to a sinister asshole and a femme fatale (later called only Madonna, played by Choi Yu-Hwa Woo) and is seriously in gambling debt. This is the transition to the next part of the movie, the caper.
Doh Il-Chul is saved by the help of mysterious older gambler and legendary ‘tazza’ One-Eye (Ryoo Seung-Bum). After a bit of convincing, One-Eye agrees to work with the youngster, and they form a squadron. There’s old-timer swindler with the connections Director Kwon (Kwon Hae-Hyo), tricky vixen Young-Mi (Lim Ji-Yeon), and odd, if talented prestidigitation Fealer (Lee Kwang-Soo). Fealer and Young-Mi have some fun personalities, even if the whole ‘please sleep with me I’m desperate’ character is pretty tired now.
As for Old Kwon, he’s relegated to the background until I began to wonder why he was even included. One-Eye has that cool charismatic vibe, and then the movie tosses in a few twists and turns that aren’t particularly shocking or unusual, but they’re alright. Naturally the gang hits problems with their target, nuevo riche gangster Moolyounggam (Woo Hyeon). After things inevitably go south, a new plan must happen to ‘save the day’. Of course, it’s a crime thriller, so a lot of people die or get mutilated before that happens.
The movie isn’t particularly that original or even so clever, with stock, archetypal characters. But the actors lend a sense of fun to the proceedings, and even some dramatic moments at times (mainly with the lead guy). The style is a fun one too, with a quick pacing and a feeling that hey, even if you’ve seen this plenty of times before, it’s not a bad take on it again.
The movie really tries to be a bit too clever in the final moments, but that part doesn’t really work, nor really do the dramatic moments. Still, most of it is fast-paced gambling action in a heightened, near cartoonishly brutal world. I would say that this is not an ‘action’ movie really at all, nor anything like some of the martial arts crime stuff we’ve seen out of South Korea in recent years. Instead, take it what is — a fun way to spend some time as you try to follow along with a foreign world you may have very little idea about.
Want to see Tazza: One Eyed Jack and judge for yourself? Click on the image below to see the movie, and be sure to come back and tell us what you thought!
Tazza: One Eyed Jack has a run time of 2 hours 19 minutes and is not rated.
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