The Roundup: No Way Out

 Well, it only took two sequels for the Crime City series (seemingly renamed to The Roundup in the west, despite the first one lacking that title) to become a parody of itself. This is a problem when the series didn't take itself that seriously from the beginning.

 This time around the threat is a rogue group of Yakuza who've stolen a batch of a deadly new designer drug dubbed Hyper from Japan, and are prepping to put it out on the streets. They're protected by the police chief in Incheon (Lee Joon-hyuk), a silent partner in their drug trade, but things get complicated when headquarters back in Japan realize what's going on and send a small army of thugs led by katana-wielding Rikki (Munetaka Aoki) to kill everyone involved and take back the mechandise.

 Unluckily for all of them, Ma Seok-do (Ma Dong Seok/Don Lee) of the metropolitan police and his team of hangers-on are on the case and working their way up the crime chain.

 I really liked the previous films mostly due to how they balanced gritty cop drama with Ma Seok-do's outsized  comedic persona. He's basically the only adult in a world of eight-year olds, slapping both thugs and the law around until things fall into place, but they worked like eighties cop movies in that respect.

 The Roundup: No Way Out exaggerates that aspect even more and amps up the comedy and action until there's no sense of threat. Don Lee's basically a superhero at this point: infallible, unbreakable and possessed of superhuman strength; His punches now regularly send people flying through walls and at one point he knocks a thug unconscious with an open-handed slap.

 At the same time the plot he's up against is a bit murky and overstuffed with characters. It woks... kinda, but it's nowhere near as compelling as the previous movies' cases. And the pacing is a bit repetitive, falling back on Don Lee arriving, kicking everyone's ass, then finding the clue that will lead to the next throwdown, or cutting to internecine fights between the criminals.

 The action is all right, as always - the choreographies tend toward the basic but it's clear, often funny, and it's full of good stunts. Don Lee's presence helps a lot, his boxer training, bulk and charisma lending credence to his physical threat, and his weary 'can you believe this shit?' expression is always funny.

 The comedy is a bit more unreliable; A new character (Jeon Seok-ho, I think) scores quite a few laughs as a criminal-turned-informant who gets a little too into helping the police, and the few times the movie dares poke fun at Don Lee are pretty funny as well. Less successful: all the bits where the police gleefully roll their eyes at due process and ethics - there's yet another scene where the police cover up the cameras in their (much nicer, this time around) office so they can engage in some police brutality with a suspect, which has become a running gag in these films.

 Later on there's a scene with the Yakuza brutally beating one of their own for information, and I wasn't sure how I was meant to feel - I mean, it played very similar to the police scene before, only people weren't smiling and the music was menacing. I know it's tiresome to bring this up, it's a fantasy where the police are infallible, yadda yadda, but... screw this shit.

 Things have now become untethered enough from reality that the movie loses the sense of danger that the previous installments managed to still hold on to. Either that, or the formula's grown stale for me. It's still watchable - returning director Lee Sang-yong knows how to make slick entertainment - but if I have to be honest, I'm way less interested in seeing where Don Lee and his crew head on next.

The Roundup

 The Roundup chronicles the further adventures of detective Ma Seok-do (Ma Dong-seok, but I'm going to start calling him by his chosen anglicized moniker of Don Lee) and his merry gang of police brutality enthusiasts, last seen in 2017's very enjoyable The Outlaws. We first get a look at him when he stops a nutjob who's holding a grocery store at knife-point. He gets annoyed at the would-be stabber and actually stabs him lightly in the ass a few times after brutally putting him down. Then, when the newspapers (correctly!) call out undue force, he and his buddies chuckle over the headlines!

 It's... I mean, I think it works within the tone of the movie, which is basically a more comedic, over-the-top Dirty Harry were Clint was a wise-cracking uncle who's not afraid to show some tough love. As with The Outlaws, it operates in a heightened world where torture works, regulations only hinder honest folk who want nothing but to do their job well, and Ma is basically an uncorruptible, infallible engine of justice. I'm ok with it because that's the buy-in to enjoy the film, and I can find it funny. But I'd understand it if others might not... so take this as a trigger warning, there is a lot of  shit in this film that should rightly horrify any right-thinking person.

 With all that out of the way: it's another fun outing for Don Lee and the gang. This time around they're sent out to Viet-Nam to extradite a Korean criminal; Detective Seok Do and his chief (Choi Gwi-hwa) are all set to take it as a holiday, but soon they discover that the real reason why their charge has turned himself in is to escape from a nasty psycho (Son Suk-ku) who's targeting Korean tourists abroad. Of course they decide to go out and investigate, even though it's completely out of their jurisdiction, and from there things get a little more complicated as their quarry angers the wrong millionaire and starts getting hunted down by mercenaries.

 I actually like the structure of the movie a lot - the movie starts with a brutal kidnapping, and the rest of the plot grows out of that organically; it's a good script, even if it often gets a little too ridiculous and kind of loses the plot by the final act.

 Don Lee remains the main attraction here, with a lot of cool dad energy (he even delivers a beatdown with his belt!) and comedic chops. It's a pretty funny film, and a lot of it is based on how inappropriate the shit they pull off is. They even sort of repeat the torture scene from the first movie and kind of turn it into a running gag. Bad Detectives: Port of Call Ho Chi Minh, except that the movie is completely, uncritically on their side.
 Most of the cast returns from The Outlaws; all of the cops and even some of the criminals are given supporting roles. The action is also great, a little upgraded from the first one - not just in that Don Lee now delivers some super-powered punches and knocks out someone with a slap, but the main antagonist gets a very respectable one-take knife/machete/cleaver brawl that starts out like the hallway fight in Oldboy but then spreads out into the surrounding house. Lots of cool stunts, people going through lots of furniture, some good vehicular action.

 All in all I think I liked the first one better, even if this is a better case - some of the stuff here just went a little too broad for my taste, especially how much they get away with over in 'Nam. It's also a clear case of a sequel that delivers more of the same, but louder, bigger, and sillier. That's fine, but let's set some higher goals for the third one.