The Outlaws

  "Based on a true story!" Boasts the trailer for The Outlaws, a 2017 Korean film, exclamation sign and everything. I'm going to take a wild guess and say that, like Cocaine Bear, it uses a real incident (an early 2000's police sting which resulted in a bunch of arrests) as a springboard for a pretty nuts police actioner rather than an attempt to shed any light on what actually happened.
 And this is fine! Because as it turns out it's a fun and well-made pretty nuts police actioner.

 Detective Ma Seok-do (Ma Dong-seok) heads up a small serious crime unit embedded in the Chinatown section of Seoul, trying to curb Chinese gang violence from escalating. The guy has a personal, almost friendly relationship with most of the gang bosses, to the point where he stops a turf war from exploding by browbeating two opposing gang leaders into playing nice with each other.
 He patronizes another gang den, one of those bars/karaoke joints which... yeah, pretty sure it'd count as a serious case of corruption. He and his team also do that thing where they beat up suspects while pointing the office cameras away. Ah, police brutality, always hilarious.

 It works, though, because the movie adopts a pretty heightened tone that doesn't fully break with reality, but it's made abundantly clear that it's not one-hundred percent serious either. They do this mostly by deploying Ma Dong-seok's outsized charisma and impeccable comedic timing; The guy is ridiculously likeable, and can do no wrong even when he fucks up. There's quite a lot of understated humor in the movie, and most of it comes down to Dong-Seok's considerable charm. He's just as likely to treat an armed assailant as a child and annoyedly ask for the weapon, rather than getting into a fight... and the funniest part is that it seems like common sense, yep, that would probably work. At least for Don Lee.

 The main plot arrives in the shape of a trio of mainland goons led by one Jang Chen (ex-K-pop singer Yoon Kye-sang, in good badass form). They come to collect on a debt, and instead take over one of the gangs and start to brutally murder their way across the criminal underworld. They're so ruthless that it actually works! But their methods call too much public attention, and cause the police commissioner to take the case away from the Serious Crimes unit.

 Ma Seok-do takes exception to this, and manages to keep the case for ten more days by betting his job on being able to make 25 arrests before that time is through. Again: not how the world works, but it's a snug fit with the somewhat goofy, ultra-tough tone of the film.

 There's some cheesy business with a surrogate son figure (though he might be his real son, if I understood correctly? That would make it a lot cheesier) and some brutal, actually upsetting violence - torture, sexual violence, that sort of thing. As with much of South Korea's cinematic output, the tone can vary wildly from one scene to the next, but overall it's pretty well considered. There's some bloody detail to some of the carnage but nothing too gory.
 The action is pretty great. There's a lot of it, mostly short and brutal, not show-offy at all. It still manages some fun sequences, my favorite ones involving cars. The standout is the one drawn-out fight set in a public restroom, and it's an absolute winner: no porcelain is cracked, but you can't say the same for mirrors, glass partitions, a flowerpot (!) and some pipes. Great stuff.

 It was hugely successful and has already spawned two wildly popular sequels, with a third one on the way for next year. Based on how enjoyable this one is, I'm really looking forward to catching up with the further adventures of Det. Ma Seok-do and the gang.