A perfect weekend movie filled with comedy and action packed.
The Roundup has done it again.I'm glad I watched it in the cinema.
It was a fun and thrilling ride. The movie, as always, started by showing the bad guys and then later on introducing Ma Seokdo in a funny way. Very typical, but still entertaining.
The plot is great, it's predictable but absolutely not boring. The casts are perfect for each roles. They really went out of their way casting actual Japanese actors instead of making Korean acted like Japanese (just like the usual) which I highly appreciated. The action scene is chef's kiss, although it's quite a pitty that they had to censor it so the graphic part weren't shown at all but it's still satisfying to see all the actions.
Definitely will recommend it to everyone. Can't wait for the fourth movie already!
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"Have I ever caused any problems?"
Ma Dong Seok returned as the loose cannon cop who doesn’t play by the rules in The Roundup: No Way Out. Officer Ma Suk Do became even more impervious to pain and injuries in this follow-up. Next time they need to put him in a cape and tights to help better explain why he could punch people through walls and take blows that would be deadly for any other cop. But this was Ma Dong Seok, my favorite ahjussi hitter and I adore him so he can get away with almost anything supernatural and I won’t question it…much.Ma Suk Do is up against big time drug dealer, Joo Sung Cheol, the yakuza, dirty cops, and an assortment of other criminals. When a bag of dope goes missing, everyone is either racing to find it or figuring out a way to use it to their advantage.
Ma Dong Seok is a charismatic actor and fun to watch. As much as I enjoy watching him slap, punch, and body slam people, it became ridiculous that his character was nearly always fighting solo against a group. Where’s this man’s backup? Even when his partner was with him, it was a detriment because after all the years, Kim Man Jae, has never learned adequate self-defense. The film also highlighted for me that police officers need to be able to carry a gun, especially when constantly facing groups of ruthless criminals who are armed with bats, knives, and even a katana.
There wasn’t anything innovative about the story. The age-old trope of adding humorous low-level crooks gave the film some much needed humor during breaks of police brutality. The problem I had with the movie was that there were too many ill-defined criminals. It had a conveyor belt of baddies who were hard to keep up with and some who only popped in for a quick shot or two. I didn’t find Big Bad Joo Sung Cheol particularly menacing or effective. Kunimura Jun had a couple of brief appearances as the head of the yakuza gang and I found myself wishing he had a more substantial role. Katana wielding Aoki Munetaka also made for an interesting character though he too needed more screen time. The police department was just as plagued with poorly drawn characters whose only job was to show up AFTER Ma had clobbered all of the baddies. They’d come in and cleanup the crime scenes and call the ambulances for all the broken bodies.
This Roundup sequel wasn’t as strong as the previous movie largely due to uneven pacing and poorly drawn characters. It was an entertaining watch due largely to Ma Dong Seok’s screen presence and appeal. He loves what he does, but his physical health seems to be deteriorating which always concerns me. Through the years he has suffered various injuries and also has no cartilage in his knees. It was sad watching him struggle to walk upstairs, but as long as he continues to make films and dramas, I’ll continue to watch them even if he’s taking down criminals with his walker or cane.
14 December 2024
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More complex storyline, but weaker fight sequences
Guy is back again after a year, whether it is an upgrade this time around, the answer is both yes and also no. The story building is more intensive in this third installment as they go for a more complex structure of a three way conflict that involves a lot more thought process, and the implementation of the characters are great along with the flow of the story. Now onto the weakness that this movie had, which sadly should be its main selling point, the action choreography. The franchise that was known for having masterclass martial arts sequences, somehow turns out not as powerful as the first and the second movie, fight scenes here were a little plain and dull, punches get simpler and battles get shorter, which feels like a rushed production. The previous two villains also fare so much better in terms of fighting skills and the pure charisma on screen, whereas the villain here is just not that intimidating and thrilling. It also has a weird tone that relies on too much humor to push the plot forward which almost becomes a full blown comedy. Well i guess sequels are just not that easy to preserve its excellence but I hope the next installment could really do better than this.Was this review helpful to you?
Tries its best
Round up: No way out or Outlaws 3 has all of the iconic elements of the previous movies: violent fight as a comic relief, lots of stabbing, a lot more swearing, fast pace, not much of a storyline, a single unarmed person defeating a bunch of armed people, even the truth room BUT .... at the end something's lacking in this one that makes it less enjoyable than the others.A large part of it is about his new team. They lack the charisma and craziness of the previous team who went to fight like mad. 3 of them were outed early and those 2 from Narcos weren't much better. That made fight scenes inferior. Ma Suk Du can only do much by slapping people unconcious. He needs some like minded people around to keep the numbers.
The villain is a nice surprise but for all his evilness is stupid, the kind of psycopathic foolishness that doesn't think just kills. It's a wonder how he'd managed to keep his side business a secret all these years. Maybe the promise of huge money in his last deal had made him mad and desperate, still I didn't like him. The Japanese were usual evil fixers, did good with what they had.
Despite all flaws, I enjoyed it and had a good laugh and I'll watch the future movie(s) because I love this genre but I wouldn't keep my expectations high.
If I want to rewatch, I prefer to rewatch the others.
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This review may contain spoilers
All ma dongsuk movies blur into one world🤣 mom got sulky when I said I’d watch slam dunk, and I didn’t wanna leave her for 2 hours so I chose this insteadShe still sulked 🫡
It was pretty basic, madongsuk beats ppl, ppl beat ppl and madongsuk still beats ppl that beat ppl
It had a couple of funny scenes,
“-shibal bar? -No, that’s cyber bar”
And the motel scene had me laughing 😭😭🤣
The cinema was small and had a few Koreans so actually with the bad short subs, we were the only ones getting some jokes
I think they need more characters to stand by him, like it became a recurring joke that his partners came in after he beat everyone up, so it was funny but 1on1 will always have a btch slap KO from dongsuk
We laughed at ma ha cuz that’s actually a girl name here, and my uncle’s wife, and ma dongsuk was like “we share the same surname” so ppl laughed for different reasons 😂
Also lee joonhyuk is HOT, but here he felt basic, not threatening enough or as crazy as the previous two main villains, just bland, even my mom was like “all those villains feel the same”
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i like Ma Dong Seok, think he is a very versatile actor in-spite of the look. but cause of his look, most of his movies r him portraying a human wrecking ball. which seems repetitive IMHO (been there seen that). also cause of his "Might" (even though he's human) seeing anyone stand-up after one punch from him, is ludicrous - like come on, there's no freakin way they weren't punched straight into an ICU
side note: what kinda shocked me, took me a while to recognize Lee Joon Hyuk (loved him in Stranger) here idk what the makeup artist did, but he looks bloated & bad.
about the movie/plot; a generic plot which was ok. wasn't blown away by anything. there were a lot pf plot holes if anything. the fights were brutal, but grew monotonous as we went from one fight to another. a one off
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