Jagd Am Limit

Taking a dose from "Speed", "The Rock", and "Die Hard", the South Korean movie TUBE is just your average shoot'em up and blow'em up actioner. It takes its cues more from your average Hollywood summer fare, with an outrageous premise and a variety of cliches only possible in similar silly action movies.

TUBE has going for it an intriguing villain, but the hero is not quite so interesting, even if the film spends more than 25 of the first 30 minutes on his back story. The character of the girl who falls in love with the hero and basically stalks him around south Korea is a bit disturbing, mostly because it's so silly and unbelievably "kiddie" stuff.

Not to say that TUBE isn't a worthwhile movie. It has its share of exciting action set pieces, but for the most part the film lacks brain cells, which isn't much of a surprise for action movies. And yet, TUBE just doesn't seem to understand that criminal masterminds don't leave a spunky girl alive even after she's fouled up his plan for the 50th time. Outrageously silly.

5 out of 10

You don't get me containing my excitement too much for Hong Kong/Japanese/Korean action films. I see a name like John Woo, Chow Yun-Fat or Takeshi Kitano on a movie poster and I break into hives with anticipation. What makes these foreign films better or more appealing than their American counterparts you ask? Well, first and foremost is the style. Our friends from the East have a knack for action sequences. Check out the gunplay in films like Hard Boiled and Shiri and see their influences in the West with films like Face/Off and Heat.

So when the creators of Shiri reunited for a film about a cop on the trail of a madman who has taken over a speeding train, my heart began to pump uncontrollably and pestered my local DVD supplier continually for updates as to the film's North American Release.

The film I am referring is Tube. Directed by first timer Baek Woon-Hak and starring a multitude of hyphenated names that you wouldn't recognize, the movie was about a former assassin for the government that takes over a subway train to persuade his former boss and now mortal enemy to sacrifice his life for the lives of the innocents on board.

Putting a crink in the plans is a rogue cop who has been on the killers trail for many years, and who too is looking for payback for the death of his wife and the loss of a finger in an abbreviated altercation that took place some time in the past.

As demands are made and peaceful solutions examined, people are shot, ambushes are ordered and rail cars are blown up. Everything we would expect from a film of this genre.

It's too bad it doesn't work.

While watching Tube I wondered if the Director and Producers were sitting around one weekend watching American action films and tried to copy what they thought were the best parts from each. The premise is stripped from Under Siege 2 (and if you ever copy a Steven Segal film, you need your head checked), the opening sequence rips of Heat, an attempted rescue on the train was done better in Speed and even films like Apollo 13 and Stallone's Daylight look to have had their scenes stolen directly from the original screenplays.

But stealing from big budget films wasn't the only once noticeable Americanization of the film. Speeches are given when the characters should be acting or reacting to their situations and flashbacks are thrown in to stretch the running time. The soundtrack was overwhelming as is Hans Zimmer was vacationing in Tokyo and had nothing better to do than provide a repeating beat that would bound out of my subwoofer every time we see the train speeding down the track. Even the comic relief in the character of a thug that is handcuffed in one of the rail cars was straight from a Bruckheimer brainstorm. Whoa's me!

My excitement over the films release was quashed like a lake being thrown on a campfire. Everything that made these foreign films unique and pulse pounding was lost to what I can only assume was an attempt to puncture a hole in the lucrative North American video market. I could have cared less about the characters, I felt no attachment to the emotional attachment between the various couples and if you are just going to throw mindless action at me, well then, I hate to say it but give me a Michael Bay film. At least then I know what to expect and don't feel robbed of an afternoon.

www.gregsrants.com

STAR RATING:*****Unmissable****Very Good***Okay**You Could Go Out For A Meal Instead*Avoid At All Costs

Cop Jay is intent on busting criminal mastermind .T.When he hi-jacks an underground train,he finds the perfect opportunity to make this happen.

This slow and overlong action thriller takes nearly two hours to tell a story that could have been wrapped in an hour and a half.For an action film,said action is not exactly in plentiful supply either.

It's intriguing (for me,anyway) and certainly very nice to catch a slice of Oriental action cinema,but when it's something so ultimately perfunctory and ordinary,it just ends up feeling so much more pointless.If you want to watch an action thriller set on board a train,rent Under Siege 2 with Steven Seagal,it's far superior.**

I never heard of this movie when I rented it, and I had no idea which country it was from. Heh, i didn't bother reading the DVD cover. I thought it was Japanese, as it had that look, but the writing was a little off. Regardless, it's a South Korean actioner, that stylistically had some nice moments, but this film did not know when to quit.

Basically, two bad guys take over a train, and hold the country ransom. A renegade detective who is has a past with the main bad guy, must work with the police and the rail system to try and save the hostages. The Korean equivalent to 'Under Siege 2'! From the opening scene, where the main villain somehow manages to thwart the entire police force unscathed, this is a hard film to take seriously! Not only is it fairly confusing as to what character did what to the other in the past, it has moments where you don't quite know what happened to the characters. Did some of the passengers of the train get killed during that huge shootout? Why didn't the hostages in the main carriage escape during the first big macho fight between protagonist and antagonist? Little things like that! Oh, and then a sub-character and his colleagues seem to take two thirds of the movie to re-act to that sub-character's love interest being one of the hostages? Oh, and the police force don't seem to acknowledge any loss of life when planning their next move. But the main problem I had with this film, is that it was climax overkill. Every time, our hero seemed to stop something bad from happening, there was another introduction of a plot element that wasn't established. Trains almost colliding with each other, and the pressure is on the technical staff! The hero manages to thwart the train's weight making a bridge collapse with it's obstacles, then has to stop a bomb, and fight a bad guy (again, with obstacles), then the next plot point is introduced, and the other heroes have to divert the train from hitting a nuclear plant (ala obstacles). And then there is yet another climax after that. Like one reviewer noted, all you needed was something to hold down the weight of the lever in regard to that one! I was getting really bored of this movie towards the end. Plus, there a pointless scene where the hostages stand up to the bad guy, and it could have been totally cut, and it didn't furthur the plot at all. It was totally unnecessary cause it didn't add to the story thematically, or provide anything to the plot! That pretty much sums up how 'Tube' keeps piling unnecessary climatic moments, and it really over-kills the climax factor basically because they forgot to introduce many of the main elements beforehand (i.e. the rigged train to explode, and subsequent numerous bombs)! 'Tube' is not a very good movie!

** out of *****!

This is from the producer of "Sheri" so I had high hopes for a good action packed over the top violent move. Nope.Very few action scenes and most are either underdone or over done.

Action freaks be warned this is more of a drama with a few action scenes.

This is a poor version of " under siege 2" with too much sappy story and not enough fighting.

A few enjoyable cliché scenes help but generally silly and not much of a heart tugger as it seems to be attempting to be.

The special effects are adequate.

The acting is generally passable to good.

The story is hole ridden and silly.