Think of it as ‘Speed’ on the subway

Baek Woon-hak’s “Tube” means to compete with razzle-dazzle Hollywood action thrillers, and at least on a technical level succeeds, but elliptical, hard-to-follow plotting compounded by inadequate and banal subtitles flatten the film’s thrills. Some occasional English soundtrack narration would go a long way toward making this “Speed” on a subway movie clearer and therefore more involving.

It’s important to understand that the film’s opening sequence is a prologue, an elaborate shootout at Seoul’s Gimpo Airport in which the key villain escapes from a determined young police detective. Suddenly, the film switches to a Seoul subway station, where a pretty, pixieish young woman, Kay (Bae Doo-na), a pickpocket with a mystical streak, takes notice of that same young police detective, Jay (Kim Seok-hun), decides the set of his broad shoulders suggests that he is lonely and sets her cap for him. In the meantime, she relieves him of his wallet.

Flashbacks reveal that Jay, a cop after Dirty Harry’s heart, has been in pursuit of the airport villain, the ferociously implacable T (Park Sang-min), who in turn is enraged that Jay had killed his wife. When the observant Kay spots T and a cohort aboard a subway train, they strike her as suspicious, so she phones Jay, who responds by jumping on his motorcycle, barreling down subway station staircases and pursuing the train until he is able to leap aboard it. At this point “Tube” shifts into high gear at last. T promptly hijacks the train, announcing that in the last of its many cars he has placed a ton of explosives that will detonate if any attempt is made to stop the train.

Baek has now positioned himself to pile it on and pull out the stops in building heart-pounding suspense as he cuts between the hijacked train and the subway’s vast control room, where its chief, Kwon (Son Byeong-ho), soon locks horns with the Seoul police chief and other government officials over how best to tackle so daunting a crisis. T apparently has been a government secret gone bad and then mad, and it would seem that the government officials are less interested in saving lives than a coverup, but this aspect of the plot is unfortunately as murky as it is crucial.

On visual -- and visceral -- levels, “Tube” works like gangbusters. The picture is sleek rather than merely slick, moves like lightning and is loaded with nail-biting incidents and dynamic action. What’s unfolding for the most part is fun and exciting, but unfortunately it isn’t always fully clear.

*

‘Tube’

MPAA rating: R, for violence and language

Times guidelines: Terrorist action and threats

Kim Seok-hun...Jay

Bae Doo-na...Kay

Park Sang-min...T

Son Byeong-ho...Kwon

A Silver Nitrate Releasing release of a Tube Entertainment presentation in association with Tube Investment, CJ Entertainment, UniKorea and Cowell Investment Capital of a Mir Film production. Writer-director Baek Woon-hak. Producers Seo Gyeong-seok, Lee Chang-woo. Executive producers Kim Seung-beom, Moon Sung-jun, Lee Kang-Bok, Yeom Tae-soon. From a story by Kim Hyung-wan, adapted by Byun Woon-mee, Kim Min-joo, Kim Jung-min. Cinematographer Yoon Hong-shik. Editors Park Kok-ji, Kim Mi-young. Music Whang Sang-Jun. Stunt coordinator Jung Doo-hong. Special effects Jung Do-Ahn. Costumes Kang Kook-hee, Kim Hya-sung. Art director Whang In-jun. Set designer Chungsol Art. In Korean with English subtitles. Running time: 1 hour, 56 minutes.

Exclusively at Fairfax Cinemas, Beverly Boulevard at Fairfax Avenue, L.A., (323) 655-4010.