Tube (2003)

Korean action film from the makers of Shiri.That should be an indication that the film doesn't make a whole heck of sense while amping it up on the action.The plot has a transit cop duking it out with a super villain who is after a memory chip with incriminating evidence on it (the evidence is of government misdeeds not his own) To that end the bad guy ends up taking a subway train hostage.Think Speed, Money Train, the taking of Pelham 123, and die hard rolled into one. Think not American so a couple of American movie-isms don't play out.Did I like it? Yes and know. Unclear to a fault this is all about the macho battle between good and bad and the action that it breeds. The action is five star classic stuff. The sequences just build and build and build. Actually every sequence has the feel of the final battle between good and evil, and thats the problem the movie ends probably 19 times before it actually ends. My dad and I were watching this together and we wanted to go get something to drink but were going to wait until the approaching end, only to realize that we still had over 45 minutes left.Its good, hell the action is great, but the actions relentless amping up wears you down. In a weird way you feel as beaten up as our hero.I'm sure this would play better if the story made any real sense. As a narrative thread, and I do mean thread, its the sort of thing we've seen before. Unfortunately the devil is in the details and most if not all of the details are lacking or missing, so much so that I was frequently wondering why and who and how. Characters aren't developed so much as thrust fully clichéd upon the screen. Only the narrating love interest has any real depth to her and she disappears for sections of the film.Give it points for a couple of decidedly non-American twists-which I won't reveal since they are twists, but ultimately the story is needlessly oblique, which when coupled with the audience pounding action makes the film less than it should be.For action fans this is a must see, for the rest an okay time killer.6.5 out of 10, the pieces being better than the messy whole.

I'm not very familiar with Korean cinema, although I have seen some movies. In Tube, it's not about what happened in the past, but how the characters evolve in the current setting and further development of the movie. I think Baek Woon-Hak has written a very strong, action-packed story, with Seok-Hun Kim playing a very convincing Jay. I'm more of a feel-good-movie-geek, but movies like this make you at least think twice about certain things. What intrigues me most about Asian cinema, and especially in this movie, is how they brilliantly combine drama and building up tension, with action, psychology, thrills, and even a comic-relief in the middle of all that.I watched this movie, and I don't even speak the language. That means it's worth it.

Korean cinema of late has produced some highly entertaining and diverting pieces of work. Sadly this film is not amongst them. From the opening scene when about 4 bad guys manage to gun down about half the Korean police force but don't sustain any injuries themselves, you know that you should have your tongue firmly planted in your cheek. The problem with this film is that there is no character development and it relies on action set-pieces to carry the film along. Some of these are OK, but many are just not believable. In the Making Of documentary on the DVD release, it says that the film was 5 years in the making. It's a pity that over that length of time, no one realized that the script needed a complete rewrite.

Hugely enjoyable action flick in the vein of "Speed" and "The Rock", which sees a brilliant criminal take control of a busy rush hour train before making seemingly impossible demands of the local control tower. He didn't bank on one particular passenger, however: a renegade cop with a score to settle with the man who killed his fiance years earlier.TUBE really is a thrill ride of a film, superior to just about anything Hollywood has offered in this genre since "The Rock" and certainly comparable to Korean smash-hit "Shiri". The latter takes itself much more seriously, though: TUBE has as many witty one-liners as gun battles and explosions and doesn't lose the audience with complicated back stories or distracting subplots. Acting is stellar from all the main cast and the director does an incredible job in giving this the look and feel of a movie with ten times its relatively small budget.So, if you're after an entertaining two hours without having your mind working overtime, you'll go a long way to find a better flick than TUBE. It's the closest thing to "Die Hard" we're ever likely to see nowadays - highly recommended. **** / *****