[HanCinema's Film Review] "The Roundup: Punishment"

By William Schwartz on 2024/06/03 at 22:05 PST

There isn't any especially logical reason for why "The Roundup" movies work as well as they do. Detective Seok-do (played by Ma Dong-seok) is charismatic as Ma Dong-seok typically is. He's the muscle in any given operation, and "The Roundup: Punishment" pushes the believable limits of his raw power by having him tear down a locked gate with his bare hands in the cold open. Then the plot moves on to a convoluted scheme involving illegal online gambling operations in the Philippines.

I bristled at the often cavalier racist attitude "The Roundup" had toward Vietnam, so the treatment of the Philippines in this story was a pleasant surprise. The setting is less a criminal underworld so much as it is just a random location where virtual casinos happen to be. Dong-cheol (played by Lee Dong-hwi) is a tech bro with an evil plan to get Chang-gi (played by Kim Mu-yeol) to take over every such casino they can find.

As villains go, neither Dong-cheol nor Chang-gi are all that credible, which is an interesting approach considering this is the fourth movie now where we've seen Ma Dong-seok play a supercop. "The Roundup: Punishment" makes the main challenge just be hunting those two down in the first place. There's a tacit understanding that even in his toughest moment, Chang-gi is no match for Seok-do which strangely enough doesn't make their showdowns any less satisfying.

There's undeniable art to the martial arts choreography. Of course, I would certainly hope so given that director Heo Myeong-haeng has only ever worked as a martial arts director before aside from "Badland Hunters" earlier this year, that being another Ma Dong-seok joint. I don't know to what extent Heo Myeong-haeng really directs so much as he is just a guy who clearly owes a lot to Ma Dong-seok and isn't ever going to contradict him on set.

That's a bit of a cynical comment but, well, the supercop genre in general brings out the cynic in me due to its political implications. Despite that, "The Roundup: Punishment" manages to be remarkably charming with a genuinely funny script that does a lot with the preexisting character relationships. Hustler I-soo (played again by Park Ji-hwan) is wonderful as a guy who probably shouldn't be so easily outsmarted by Seok-do, and knows it, but brings his own special talents to the investigation hunting Dong-cheol and Chang-gi down.

Screenwriter Oh Sang-ho is best known for his work on television dramas like "Taxi Driver" and that talent matches well with Heo Myeong-haeng, as the story smoothly alternates between excellent action scenes and comic relief sections with a heavy emphasis on bickering. This even provides a surprisingly coherent theme. Dong-cheol and Chang-gi don't like each other that much and their inability to have a sense of humor causes them to plot more against each other than to prepare as adequately as they should for Seok-do's inevitable arrival on the scene.

Written by William Schwartz

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"The Roundup: Punishment" is directed by Heo Myeong-haeng, and features Ma Dong-seok, Kim Mu-yeol, Park Ji-hwan, Lee Dong-hwi, Lee Beom-soo, Kim Min-jae. Release date in Korea: 2024/04/24.