The High Rollers (Tajja) (2006)
Marjorie Piganelli
Tazza: The High Rollers was a huge critical success, becoming one of South Korea's highest-grossing films. It was the second best-selling film of 2006 in South Korea, with 6,847,777 admissions nationwide.[5]
There were some time jumps with patchy editing at the beginning which confused me a little, but after about 20 minutes the film got into its groove; and it really made me feel the high-stakes tension in the third act.
A scrambled time-line leads to an initial sense of an impressionistic, messy plot that the viewer will have to try to put back together at the end. An overarching story does develop eventually even though the particulars pile up like a plate of noodles.
Go Ni is a young man who gets involved in gambling, first as a perpetual loser, then as an apprentice to a master gambler, and finally as an accomplished high roller that is heavily compromised with its violent milieu. The game is no-limit hwatu, a sort of Korean poker, played with thumb sized cards, any of which easily hidden in the palm of your hand. And there lies the rub, for the small size of the cards allows conjuring professional gamblers to win consistently over innocent suckers.
As Go Ni rises through the ranks, he eventually reaches the rarefied heights of the high rollers, where more money is bet than you can shake a stick at. It is also an environment of strongmen and women with its own violent rules.
There is a fair amount of hwatu gambling and it would help to know some about the game, in particular the ability to recognize card faces. It would help but it is not strictly necessary.
This is the kind of film whose central premise is that violence is entertaining. The more perverse the better. There is plenty of it, though the gore is contained. It is not the aseptic, blazing-guns style of violence so dear to the American psyche, but the intimate violence of the sharp blade more to the liking of orientals. The high rollers culture of illegal gambling filled with trickery and treachery but also with a retributive code of honor is a perfect breeding ground for that kind of violence. Mounds of money on the table are insufficient to pump adrenaline into the veins of underworld figures with plenty of blood in their hands. Limbs -- in the form of fingers, ears and hands -- are bet. It's no longer a question of winning but one of not losing, of humiliating and debasing your opponent psychologically but, more perversely, physically.
If gambling and blood fests are your cup of tea, then you should be satiated, otherwise you have been warned. If you do see this, pay attention to the four rules of the master. They can be useful for life in general. Paraphrasing rule four: "Your friends are not forever, neither are your enemies."
The year 2006 was a boom year in a number of different respects. Production reached its highest level in a decade and a half, with 108 films released in theaters, and many more which were waiting for release at the end of the year. Two films broke records at the box office: King and the Clown, which was released in the closing days of 2005 (on this site it is listed on the 2005 page) and which sold 12.3 million tickets, and Bong Joon Ho's monster movie The Host, which sold just over 13 million tickets (the equivalent of over $90 million). Several other films did quite well too, including gambling film Tazza: The High Rollers and comedy 200 Pounds Beauty. Taken all together, the 2006 box office set a new record for revenues (over $1 billion) and sold the highest number of tickets since the late 1960s.Artistically too, it was a year with several highlights. Hong Sangsoo was widely praised for his seventh film Woman on the Beach; The Host won over critical praise to go with its commercial success; and the 11th Pusan International Film Festival boasted a large number of independent films that stirred up excitement among critics. A number of films shot in a more commercial vein, such as gangster movie A Dirty Carnival, debut film Like a Virgin, drama Family Ties and even the crazy low-budget comedy My Scary Girl earned high praise as well.Nonetheless, people in the film industry were sounding alarm bells by the end of the year. With so many films produced, and with the budgets of many films having grown out of control, a very small number of Korean films from 2006 ended up turning a profit. In contrast to the start of the year, when a huge number of films were in production, by year's end many investors had decided to hold back on funding any new films for a while, and the mood seemed to bode ill for 2007.The other major issue for the film industry in 2006 was the controversial reduction of Korea's Screen Quota System, which obligates theater owners to screen local films for a certain number of days per year. Formerly set on a sliding scale between 106 and 146 days per year, the government bowed to pressure from the U.S. and reduced the quota to 73 days. Filmmakers responded with lengthy public protests, but were ultimately unsuccessful in trying to get the government to revoke its decision.
Reviewed below: The Art of Fighting (Jan 5) -- If You Were Me 2 (Jan 13) -- Ssunday Seoul (Feb 9) -- Way To Go, Rose (Feb 10) -- One Shining Day (Feb 23) -- See You After School (Mar 16) -- Romance (Mar 16) -- Grain in Ear (Mar 23) -- My Scary Girl (Apr 6) -- The Peter Pan Formula (Apr 13) -- Bloody Tie (Apr 26) -- Over the Border (May 4) -- Family Ties (May 18) -- The City of Violence (May 25) -- A Bloody Aria (May 31) -- A Dirty Carnival (Jun 15) -- Silk Shoes (Jun 22) -- Aachi & Ssipak (Jun 28) -- Arang (Jun 28) -- APT (Jul 6) -- Hanbando (Jul 14) -- The Host (Jul 27) -- Forbidden Floor (Jul 27) -- Roommates (Aug 3) -- Dasepo Naughty Girls (Aug 10) -- To Sir With Love (Aug 3) -- Lump of Sugar (Aug 10) -- Cinderella (Aug 17) -- Time (Aug 24) -- Woman on the Beach (Aug 31) -- Like A Virgin (Aug 31) -- Tazza: The High Rollers (Sep 27) -- Traces of Love (Oct 26) -- My Friend & His Wife (n/a) -- Cruel Winter Blues (Nov 9) -- Host and Guest (Nov 15) -- No Regrets (Nov 16) -- If You Were Me 3 (Nov 23) -- Ad Lib Night (Nov 30) -- I'm a Cyborg, but That's OK (Dec 7) -- The World of Silence (Dec 14) -- 200 Pounds Beauty (Dec 14).