The Roundup: No Way Out (2023) Review

“The Roundup: No Way Out” Theatrical Poster

Director: Lee Sang-Yong
Cast: Ma Dong-Seok, Lee Joon-Hyuk, Munetaka Aoki, Jun Kunimura, Lee Beom-Soo, Kim Min-jae, Jun Suk-ho, Ko Kyu-phil, Bae Noo-ri, Lee Ji-hoon
Running Time: 105 min.

By Paul Bramhall

The expression “it’s the role he was born to play” may be a cliched one, but its hard to think of a more fitting one when it comes to Ma Dong-seok playing the witty, hammer fisted detective Ma Seok-do. Introduced in 2017’s The Outlaws, which was based on the Heuksapa Incident from the previous decade (an operation which involved busting Chinese gangs), by the time the 2022 sequel arrived in the form of The Roundup, producers were smart enough to figure out that Dong-seok was the selling point. For the 2^nd time around there was no ‘based on real life’ setting, instead pitting Dong-seok against a vicious Korean criminal extorting other expats residing in Vietnam. The Roundup successfully ramped up everything that worked so well in the original to 11, to the point that 2 more instalments were immediately green lit to go into production.

How to top the adrenaline pumping entertainment Dong-seok’s sophomore outing as a one-man human wrecking ball delivered is a legitimate question to ask, and in The Roundup: No Way Out it becomes apparent very quickly that the most obvious, and possibly only answer, is to offer up more of the same. Not unexpectedly, this turns out to be the 3^rd instalments biggest strength, as well as its biggest weakness. While certain scenes in The Roundup that felt familiar to The Outlaws got a pass because it had been 5 years between their respective releases, here the returning director of The Roundup Lee Sang-yong (for which No Way Out marks his sophomore directorial effort) chooses to use that same familiarity as a comforting template.

Like the previous entries, proceedings open with the purpose of establishing the viciousness of the bad guy, done via the prerequisite way of laying down a bloody beating on a helpless victim. Cut to a crime in progress that allows Dong-seok to make his entrance, the camera following him from behind, before giving him the opportunity to punch the lights out of some hapless criminals. Even the closing scenes stick to the same tradition established in The Roundup. Writing a review at the time of its release, it’s fair to say that such elements could likely age well for those watching No Way Out with more time between instalments. However with only 11 months passed since The Roundup was released, it’s easy to feel a sense of déjà vu with many of the tropes that Sang-yong repeats so soon, and with The Roundup: Punishment already in the bag, I hope we’ll get a little more breathing space before the next round.

While the previous entries took place in 2004 and 2008 respectively, in No Way Out we jump forward 7 years to 2015, making it the most contemporary in tone so far (characters now have smartphones!). After a victim is found to have traces of a new drug called Hiper in her blood, Dong-seok makes it his mission to find the source and bring those responsible to justice. Several right hooks later and the obligatory visit to the ‘truth room’, all paths lead to the Japanese yakuza and a corrupt police officer who’s been helping to facilitate the supply of the drugs. The Japanese involvement allows for a welcome cameo from Jun Kunimura (Kate, Outrage) as the head of the yakuza, here making his 2^nd appearance in a Korean production after his memorable role in Na Hong-jin’s The Wailing. 

Taking centre stage as the main bad guys though are Lee Joon-hyuk (Baseball Girl, No Mercy) as the corrupt police officer, and Munetaka Aoki (The World of Kanako, Battle Royale II) as a katana wielding fixer who Kunimura sends to Korea. The reason for Aoki’s trip is that Joon-hyuk has been skimming drugs off the top to make lucrative deals with the Chinese, resulting in a 20-kilo stash of Hiper worth millions disappearing once Kunimura gets wind of Joon-hyuk’s treachery, leaving both sides (and not forgetting the good cops!) hunting for the product. The conflict results in plenty of expected hacking and slashing between the yakuza and the corrupt cops, however the downside is that the conflict between 2 sets of bad guys sometimes leaves Dong-seok and his crew left to constantly chase their tail rather than being directly involved in the action. 

Speaking of Dong-seok’s crew, this time around he gets a new team to work with, losing the familiar faces from the The Outlaws and The Roundup. While Dong-seok was always the star of the show, his colleagues played an important part for him to bounce off – from the chief played by Choi Gwi-ha, their frazzled superior played by Jung In-gi, the rookie played by Ha Jun, and his fellow detectives played by the likes of Heo Dong-won. While they may not have been particularly fleshed out, their presence helped to build the world that Dong-seok operates in, providing him with a kind of extended family, so to see them missing in action here with no explanation is a definite detractor. I’d speculate that with No Way Out getting green lit so quickly many of them may not have been available, but as it is we get reliable character actor Kim Min-jae (Peninsula, Unstoppable) as Dong-seok’s new partner this time around.

As a sophomore feature its sometimes easy to feel that director Sang-yong felt the burden of keeping the momentum going for what’s essentially becoming a franchise. No Way Out takes a little while to find its rhythm, with proceedings almost too keen to get straight into the action. Dong-seok’s involvement in the case is literally explained through a throwaway scene involving a phone call, in which he tells his superior the case shouldn’t be handed over to narcotics since a murder was involved, so he’ll take it on. Similarly an early scene in a club feels a little forced, almost like watching Dong-seok floor a burly bouncer with a single punch should be enough to satisfy audience expectations, even though it’s too early into the plot to be fully invested. 

Thankfully as the narrative progresses it gets into the swing of things, and while the steadily escalating action scenes don’t necessarily bring much variety in terms of their execution, considering how long fans have said they’d watch anything in which Ma Dong-seok punches people (I was one of them), it feels hypocritical to complain. If anything here he’s more unstoppable than ever, punching someone so hard they soil themselves, and even getting run over by a car, before proceeding to get up and spend the rest of the movie like nothing happened. The only downside is that as much as Dong-seok has found his calling as the anvil fisted detective, there’s an undeniable feeling that the bad guys this time around simply don’t feel as threatening as Yoon Kye-sang (The Outlaws) or Son Sukku (The Roundup). Sure they’re brutal, but that slightly unhinged edge that Kye-sang and Sukku brought to the table just isn’t quite there.

That could also be a conscious decision, since here the comedy is leaned into even more, which isn’t necessarily a negative. The biggest laughs belong to Dong-seok, with an interrogation scene in a love hotel being a highlight, and there’s a self-aware nod to action movie tropes in the way the rest of the cops always arrive on scene just after he finishes a brawl, leading him to repeatedly complain how they’re constantly late. In that way it feels like the series shares the same DNA with the likes of the Dirty Harry and Lethal Weapon franchises, maintaining the basic structure of good guy has to capture bad guy, but also becoming more humorous with each entry. No Way Out is definitely more The Enforcer than it is Lethal Weapon 3, but we’ll see what direction The Roundup: Punishment takes the series in, which is kicked off in a post-credits sequence that features a welcome cameo, and moves proceedings along again to 2018.

Ultimately The Roundup: No Way Out was never going to be able to live up to its predecessor. When everything has already been successfully cranked up to 11 it’s always going to be difficult to take it any further, so the best you can do is try to maintain the same volume and hope that audiences still appreciate how loud it is. From that perspective, Sang-yong and Dong-seok do an admirable job, but it’s impossible to deny they’ve also done a very safe one.

Paul Bramhall’s Rating: 6.5/10