The age of the action star is dead when it comes to American Cinema.
The days where a single name can carry an action movie due to his appeal to mainstream audiences have been snuffed out due to the rise of superhero movies. When you mix that in with the rise of progressivism that has crippled American storytelling, action movies are in a far worse place now than they were three to four decades ago (unless your name is Tom Cruise).
Fortunately for South Korea, the progressive poison hasn’t consumed their film industry the way it has consumed ours. A swift rise of anti-feminist sentiment in South Korea led to a huge swing in the local elections for the Korean conservative party.
South Koreans love masculine storytelling and masculine movies which is why Don Lee still remains one of the top action stars in the country. Last year, the famous South Korean action star came out with a film called “The Roundup” about a group of cops who break up organized crime Rings throughout the city.
In May 2022, at a press event for The Roundup, Ma Dong-seok introduced the Crime City series as a Korean franchise that will be produced as a series of eight films. While turning this series into the South Korean version of Fast and Furious has yet to proven to be a good idea, “The Roundup: No Way Out” is the third film of this franchise with at least one more down the line.
‘The Roundup: No Way Out’ begins shortly after the events of the last movie which saw Ma Seok-do’s crew take down a trafficking and murder ring out of the country of Vietnam. Now the Detective and his team are promoted to the Metropolitan Investigation Unit where they investigate the death of a young girl who was sold a new street drug that is more deadly than cocaine and heroin called ‘Hiper’.
After doing some investigating, the case leads them to a police officer who went missing days before and both of the cases seem to be related to the same organization Yakuza. The Japanese crime mob is looking for the drugs that the fallen officer has stashed and they have hired a dirty cop named Joo-Seong Cheol to find it.
When Joo-Seong Cheol tries to take the money and the drugs for himself, Yakuza sent a hitman to do the dirty work for them. this puts Ma Seok-do’s in the middle of a violent triangle between dirty cops and a international crime organization but they have the ultimate equalizer on their side.
2023 has been a rough go for movies as we’re halfway through the year. However, “The Roundup: No Way Out” is one of the best movies to come out so far. If there’s one thing that the South Korea Market gets right, it is their portrayal of action, crime, and fun.
Ma Deong-seok, aka Don Lee Continues to be a presence on screen as he is a Powerhouse throughout the film that simply could not be ignored and in this film, he manages to mix his powerful presence with a little bit of humor as well.
Despite being part 3 of an ongoing series, you don’t have to watch the previous movies to understand exactly what’s going on here. ‘No Way Out’ does outstanding job as a standalone that effectively makes the audience want to see the previous films to get more of what they saw.
You can clearly see the influence that American action movies have on the South Korean audience. America has long been an influence on South Korean culture for better and for worse for many decades. Fortunately for South Korea, they haven’t adopted the worst qualities that the American film industry has embraced to its own detriment.
‘The Roundup No Way Out’ is a crowd-pleasing action film during a time where audiences desperately need one.
4/5
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