Ma Man!
The sequel to the Seoul Chinatown crime-thriller ‘The OUtlaws’ is much funnier than the original, but don’t worry: it’s just as bloody.
The Roundup
Director: Lee Sang-yong • Writers: Kim Min-sung
Starring: Ma Dong-seok (Don Lee), Son Suk-ku, Choi Gwi-hwa, Park Ji-hwan, Heo Dong-won, Ha Joon, Jeong Jae-kwang, Eum Moon-suk, Kim Chan-hyung, Park Ji-young, Nam Moon-cheol
South Korea • 1hr 45mins
Opens Hong Kong May 26 • IIB
Grade: B
When you look at him, Ma Dong-seok looks like the ideal Korean action thriller tough guy. He’s clearly enormous, he leans ever so lightly to the monotone (at least in Korean), and as a one-time MMA trainer (ya don’t say?) he’s got the beefy physique to go with that. He doesn’t have quite the pugilistic visage of, say, Mickey Rourke, but there’s a vaguely thumped-upon set to his cheeks. He’s carved out an unmistakable screen presence (duh!) since he first appeared in Kim Jee-woon’s kimchi western The Good the Bad the Weird as – wait for it – Bear, and later in Azooma (2012) as a detective who’s hands are tied regarding a child molestation case, and to wider international audiences in Train to Busan (2016) as a self-sacrificing passenger. In an industry, that trades in its male beauty assets, Ma is an outlier. He’s not a “beauty” and he’s never going to be the romantic lead in Korea. But what he does have going for him is cinematic dissonance. He looks the part of an old-fashioned (in the wrong way) ajeossi, but he rarely plays one. He’s respectful of women. He doesn’t smack his male co-workers as a way to indicate dissatisfaction. He often skips judgements and snarky comments. He’s helpful and can exercise sensitivity.
Which is probably why he was a romantic supporting character in Chloé Zhao’s Eternals last year, of which he was one of few highlights. Ma has about as much charm as he does girth, and in The Roundup (범죄도시2 | Beomjoe Doshi 2), the sequel to 2017’s The Outlaws, he proves why charisma, personality and presence are the intangible qualities we seek in our movie stars. Ma’s got both in heaps and it lifts this standard, entirely entertaining actioner way above its station.
If you must, which one you taking on in a fight?
When we left Detective Ma Suk-do (Ma), he had just put an end to a bloody turf war in Seoul’s Chinatown between two Chinese-Korean gangs and restored peace to the neighbourhood. The Outlaws (in Korean, literally “crime city”) was supposedly based on a true story, and so not only was it extremely stabby and gory, it was dead serious. Welp. Director Lee Sang-yong isn’t interested in dead serious. Dead, sure. But not dead serious. After working as first assistant director on that film he moves into the big chair for The Roundup and brings along a sense of humour. It’s still stabby and bloody, but it’s much funnier. Ma is funny, and Lee lets him flex those muscles too.
In The Roundup, Ma heads to Vietnam (partially shot on location but finished in Korea thanks to COVID) to extradite a low-level criminal who’s turned himself in to the consulate. He’s running from sneering psychopath Kang Hae-Sang (Son Suk-ku), a former partner whose penchant for kidnapping and murdering wealthy Korean tourists in HCMC is a bridge too far for him. Ma and his boss Jeon Il-Man (Choi Gwi-hwa, returning) decide to track him down and wind up chasing him back to Seoul when Kang vows revenge for what he considers a kidnapping gone wrong. Cue knife work.
Notice he’s on a bus. Lots of bus throwdowns these days
Kim Min-sung’s script is relatively clever, and strings out the inciting kidnapping to encompass Korean finance brokers, mercenaries for hire, developing economies and cross-border trade relations. At every turn, though, Kim and Lee contrive a reason for Ma to deploy a mighty fist to some poor bastard’s chest – you can feel the crunch in your seat – or toss them into a slab of concrete. Bit the quips start at minute one, when we’re reintroduced to Ma and his squad and he decides he’s going to teach a guy holding two women hostage in a convenience store (the only ones in the movie for over an hour) a pointed lesson. It telegraphs the far less dire mood the action unfolds in this time around. Also back for this outing is Park Ji-hwan (check him out in the excellent and under-seen Beasts Clawing at Straws) as the snivelling Chinese-Korean smuggler Chang Yi-Soo that Ma recruits to help with a ransom hand-off. The only time the quips let up is during the final, brutal throwdown on a city bus – this, Nobody and Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings officially make the municipal bus fight A Thing – that ends with a whump and an audible “Ooooooh daaaaaamn!” from the audience. But it’s a totally charming whump. Love this guy. DEK