Please let this franchise hold delivering one new movie per 12 months for the remainder of my life. Please.
The 2024 version of the New York Asian Festival runs July twelfth to July twenty eighth. Follow together with our protection here. And the twenty eighth version of the Fantasia International Film Festival runs July 18th to August 4th in lovely Montreal, Quebec. Follow together with our protection here.
At the danger of repeating myself, the previous few years have been very, superb for followers of worldwide motion films. From Hong Kong/China to Norway, from Australia to Japan, we’re getting a powerful and regular provide of kick-ass, cathartic brilliance within the type of motion cinema. South Korea has lengthy been using that wave, and their specific prowess has resulted in one of the crucial purely entertaining motion franchises in years. The Roundup: Punishment is the most recent within the sequence delivering massive enjoyable and even greater hits.
A younger Korean man is murdered abroad, and Det. Ma Seok-do (Ma Dong-seok aka Don Lee for readability sake) makes the attainable mistake of telling the person’s mom that he’ll make these accountable pay. When the investigation results in the high-tech world of on-line playing and a thug named Baek (Kim Mu-yeol), he’s instructed the case doesn’t belong together with his murder staff. When the proof factors to a high-profile member of the town’s enterprise world named Chang (Lee Dong-hwi), he’s instructed to tread evenly. He’s instructed numerous issues, however his fists ain’t listening.
While 2017’s The Outlaws is an unassuming actioner most individuals dismissed as one and finished, it really laid the groundwork for the sequels to return beginning 5 years later. Films “loosely” impressed by squad of cops in South Korea, headed up by Ma’s even looser cannon with meaty fists and no time for assholes, and a tone mixing gentle comedy with face-slapping, bone-crunching, knife-slashing motion — these are the hallmarks fine-honed by the sequels The Roundup (2022), The Roundup: No Way Out (2023), and now, The Roundup: Punishment. It’s as good a formulation as you would hope for as Don Lee’s outsized charms enliven each the nice and cozy laughs and the bloody beatdowns.
While No Way Out pits Ma towards a considerably lighter villain than two movies prior, Punishment sees a return to type on that entrance with Baek. He’s as brutal a killer as you would hope for, figuring out full properly that Ma goes to make him pay by the tip, and Kim does nice work making him each a wickedly environment friendly fighter (particularly when he’s wielding a knife) and a coolly sadistic prick. His fights towards Ma thrill as velocity and metallic meet measurement and dedication, and each performers take nice benefit of the area round them leading to a number of damaged partitions, furnishings, and extra.
Those title fights are weightier given the opponent, however Ma’s bodily encounters with different dangerous guys are at all times and undeniably pure bliss for viewers. He’s massive however has velocity of his personal, and from one-hit knockouts to face slaps that ship guys flying, it’s simply immensely gratifying to look at these thug-bugs hold getting in his face. As is the case with the earlier movies, The Roundup: Punishment retains its motion targeted on extra grounded encounters versus massive stunts or methodically choreographed fights, but it surely’s no much less efficient or thrilling in its relative simplicity.
Don Lee sits atop the pyramid describing this movie’s (and this franchise’s) enjoyment, as he’s a real and charismatic delight. A mild large, till his characters are pressured to behave in any other case, his occasional smile and comedic supply make for a persona who beefs up any position. As Ma, he will get to unleash “the beast cop” beating down baddies, cracking smart, and letting himself be the butt of the jokes at occasions. Those are the 2 pillars beneath him right here, the motion and the humor, and each proceed to be served extraordinarily properly. The laughs are aided equally by the script and the supporting solid, most of whom are returning gamers as a part of Ma’s cop squad. One standout, although, is a low-level criminal named Jang (Lee Beom-soo) who’s gone straight, nonetheless has horrible style in style, and is a simple mark for Ma’s playful manipulation.
This is director Heo Myeong-haeng‘s first go at the franchise, and only his second feature after this year’s Badland Hunters which additionally stars Don Lee, and The Roundup: Punishment is an absolute knockout. A switch-up on the high can typically trigger disruption with a sequel, however he picks up the place Lee Sang-yong left issues to ship one other stellar entry in a franchise that I hope continues gifting us with extra pugilistic enjoyable every 12 months till I die.
The 2024 version of the New York Asian Festival runs July twelfth to July twenty eighth. Follow together with our protection here. And the twenty eighth version of the Fantasia International Film Festival runs July 18th to August 4th in lovely Montreal, Quebec. Follow together with our protection here.
Related Topics: Action, Fantasia Film Festival, Ma Dong-seok, NYAFF
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