Betrayal is difficult enough to forgive, but when it comes from someone who has known you since childhood, the damage goes far beyond lost trust, especially when years of friendship have concealed a growing resentment neither person wanted to acknowledge. In Choi Kook-hee’s Tazza: The Song of Beelzebub, two childhood friends who once dreamed of making something of themselves together end up turning against each other, as years of resentment and jealousy finally catch up with them, leaving little of the friendship they once had.
Arriving twenty years after Choi Dong-hoon’s Tazza: The High Rollers (2006), the fourth and reportedly final instalment draws on the fourth volume of Heo Yeong-man’s popular comic series. The previous films, Tazza: The Hidden Card (2014) and Tazza: One Eyed Jack (2019), helped establish a cinematic world in which extraordinary gambling skills could bring enormous wealth, provided their possessors survived the criminals, opportunists and equally talented opponents waiting to take it away. Choi Kook-Hee’s film continues that tradition, although its decision to concentrate on poker, international gambling operations and a friendship destroyed by jealousy gives the familiar material a somewhat different direction. It is also largely self-contained, allowing newcomers to follow the story without knowing much about the earlier films.
In this film we have Jang Tae-young (Byun Yo-han) and Park Tae-young (Roh Jae-won), two childhood friends who share a name but have very different relationships with success. Jang possesses the sort of instinctive confidence that makes difficult decisions appear effortless, while Park has spent much of his life relying on intelligence, discipline and hard work to achieve similar results. Together, they establish a lucrative online casino business and enjoy the privileges that accompany their growing fortune. Unfortunately, the more successful they become, the more difficult Park finds it to accept that Jang receives most of the recognition, and what, at first, appears to be an ordinary professional imbalance slowly exposes a much older and more personal grievance.
Park’s resentment eventually leads him to betray his friend during a business trip to Vietnam, leaving Jang physically devastated and stripped of the life he had built. His survival provides the foundation for a revenge story that takes him into the company of experienced gamblers, dangerous criminal figures and people whose personal interests are rarely as straightforward as they first appear. Among them are characters played by Jo Woo-jin, Japanese actor Tsuyoshi Ihara and Ayaka Miyoshi, whose presence helps expand the story beyond the familiar Korean gambling circuit. As Jang prepares to confront the man responsible for his downfall, the film becomes increasingly concerned with whether his natural talent will be enough against an opponent who understands his habits, weaknesses and methods of thinking almost as well as he does.
Park has spent much of his life comparing himself to Jang, unable to understand why someone he considers less deserving has managed to achieve so much with little effort, while he has had to work considerably harder for the same recognition. His resentment has been building for years, and the film offers some insight into where it comes from, especially through scenes from his childhood, when he grew up with an abusive mother whose extreme religious beliefs made an already difficult home life even more miserable. Park’s close relationship with Jang’s family only brings more resentment, as he feels that others have always had an easier life than him. Roh Jae-won plays him convincingly, but the film could have explored his troubled past and his friendship with Jang in greater depth, unfortunately, Choi rushes through their confrontations, leaving much of Park’s character unexplored.
Roh Jae-won is effective in conveying Park’s increasingly unpleasant personality, giving the character a nervous intensity that makes some of the scenes uncomfortable. It’s almost exhausting to watch a man who has achieved considerable wealth and influence remain so desperately dissatisfied with his own life, and Roh understands that Park’s greatest weakness is his inability to enjoy anything he possesses while somebody else appears to have more. His performance occasionally ventures into exaggerated territory, although this is partly a consequence of the film’s tendency to emphasise emotions that have already been communicated perfectly well through his behaviour. Nevertheless, he makes a convincing antagonist, especially when Park’s carefully maintained composure begins to deteriorate.
Byun Yo-han gives Jang an easy confidence that makes him enjoyable to watch, even as his comfortable life begins to fall apart. His character has always relied on luck and instinct, rarely considering what might happen if things went wrong. Although Byun handles the role well, Jang’s journey from a ruined businessman to a skilled gambler feels a little rushed and the screenplay doesn’t always make his transformation believable.
The story also takes us outside of South Korea, with Vietnam playing an important part in Jang’s downfall and Japanese criminal organisations becoming involved in his revenge. Jo Woo-jin delivers a convincing performance, while Ayaka Miyoshi is equally interesting as Kaneko, a woman with her own reasons for seeking revenge. Unfortunately, neither the supporting characters nor their stories receive enough attention, and some feel included simply to make Jang’s journey more complicated.
At 129 minutes, Tazza: The Song of Beelzebub runs longer than necessary, with too many side stories and criminal dealings taking attention away from Jang and Park, whose complicated friendship is far more interesting. The violence can also feel excessive, while the sudden changes between brutal confrontations, humour and gambling sometimes make the film uneven. The female characters are another missed opportunity, especially Kaneko, whose story deserved more attention rather than remaining largely connected to the men’s revenge. Still, the film has plenty to offer; the poker scenes are entertaining, the performances are convincing, and the expensive casinos and dangerous criminal world provide enough excitement to keep the story moving. Choi clearly understands what audiences enjoy about the Tazza franchise, even if this instalment lacks some of the charm and originality of the earlier films.
As the fourth and final instalment, Tazza: The Song of Beelzebub is an entertaining but uneven conclusion to the series. Byun Yo-han and Roh Jae-won deliver strong performances that hold the film together, even when the story loses its way. However, the crowded storyline, unnecessary violence and underdeveloped supporting characters prevent it from reaching its full potential. It is worth watching, especially for fans of the franchise, but a simpler story with greater attention to its two central characters might have made for a far more satisfying farewell.
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Written by Maggie Gogler
Featured image courtesy of Well Go USA
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