Tazza: The Hidden Card

Ham-dae starts living at card tables like his uncle. Talented but inexperienced, after the first big loss he loses the woman he loves and everything he has. The only road left is back to the table of the men who sank him. Kang Hyoung-chul directed. Choi Seung-hyun plays Ham-dae, Shin Se-kyung the woman, and Yoo Hae-jin returns as Go Gwang-ryeol from the first film. This is the sequel to Tazza from 2006. The source is the same comic series; the two films share a world but the stories stand apart. It is built on hwatu, the Korean card game. What the film manages is to hold viewers who do not know the rules inside the tension at the table, telling it through hand movements, cheating technique and the staging of a bluff. The tone is younger and faster than the first film, and the violence is harder. Kang Hyoung-chul also directed Scandal Makers and Sunny, and the comic timing shows. Who it is for: fans of gambling films and Korean crime cinema. Who it is not for: anyone expecting the first film's toughness; the sequel is flashier and shallower.