The Roundup: No Way Out

Detective Ma and his crew return to bust the heads of a drug ring, the yakuza and everyone else who gets in their way.

“Have I ever caused trouble?”

When I went to watch The Roundup last year, I’d no idea that it was a sequel to a pretty huge Korean blockbuster. I certainly didn’t think there would be any more, or that it would be – according to star Ma Dong-seok – a franchise not unlike The Fast and the Furious. So let’s see what the third in the series has in store.

Detective Ma Seok-do (Ma Dong-seok) and his team investigate the death of a woman, whose autopsy report claims was taking a new drug called Hiper, manufactured in Japan and sold by the yakuza. Meanwhile, corrupt narcotics agent Sung-chul (Lee Joon-hyuk) is aiding a syndicate steal and distribute Hiper for a profit, and Ma’s investigation threatens his lucrative position of power. At the same time, the yakuza boss (a surprise cameo by Jun Kunimura) sends out assassin Ricky (Munetaka Aoki) to hunt down the syndicate, just to add a few extra layers of complexity.

As its title suggests, The Roundup: No Way Out is a sequel to last year’s The Roundup, but its English title oddly ignores the first film in the series The Outlaws. It doesn’t help if people want to see these in order, but each film in the series is structured well enough that you don’t actually need to have seen any of the previous entries to know what’s happening. The Crime City series (using its Korean name) harkens back to classic comedy cop films and never gets too entangled with larger dramas or overarching stories. This allows for the movies to breathe better, and means you can go years between entries without having to remember what happened before (I’m looking at you, Mission: Impossible films).  

There’s plenty of solid action, led by Ma Dong-seok, who has been hitting like a truck since he taped up his arms in Train to Busan and ripped apart countless zombies. There are times when his character comes across like a little too untouchable, so it’s refreshing to see him suffer the consequences of too many beatings as the story progresses. It’s little touches like this, and Ma’s persistent nice-guy smirk that keeps things at least a little grounded, and stops Detective Ma from becoming a bit too overpowered.

It’s a comedy, but the story and the crime aspects of No Way Out are what really drive it forward. In that regard, though, the movie is a little plot heavy and not in the best way. There are tonnes of scenes of people talking about moving pills, and hiding pills, and searching for those pills as smaller groups trying to screw larger groups over. There are way too many moving pieces to keep track of, at least at first. The sheer density of story in No Way Out is a bit of an issue, as it forces you to remember a lot of names and relationships in a small space of time. This gets better as the story settles and characters get murdered, but it’s definitely a rough start.   

That said, the characters are all very entertaining, and there are excellent performances all around to keep things engaging. Lee Joon-hyuk is a pitch perfect villain, with a morally grey view on things that ensures he remains the wild card throughout the movie, while others like Aoki’s Ricky and Ko Kyu-pil’s goofy car salesman gangster have considerably less complexity, to allow the audience to understand their deal better.

All of these characters and plot details means that, ultimately we lose a lot of the squad banter that made the other films in the series such charms. It’s still there, but in a reduced capacity. That takes away a lot of the comedy (though we get a lot from Jeon Seok-ho’s dealer-turned-informant) but it’s there just enough to keep the tone light. It’s a surprisingly decent second sequel, which might not have matched the quality of the last two, but certainly not bad enough to think that the series is going downhill. And with a fourth already on the way, and supposedly another four in development, here’s hoping they can keep pace with themselves.

Verdict: Another hugely entertaining blockbuster action crime comedy, No Way Out continues the series’ success and paves the way for even more beat-em-up action in the future.

Overall entertainment: 7/10
Violence: 5/10
Sex: 0/10
Factions: 3? 5? Who knows
Oddly cute moments: The “Mr Ma” greeting at the end
Pills: Do they really get counted in weight and not units?
Gangnam Style: Still a popular karaoke piece, apparently

The Roundup: No Way Out (2023)
Also known as: 범죄도시3 “Crime City 3”
Korean, Japanese

Director: Lee Sang-yong
Writer: Kim Min-sung

CAST

Ma Dong-seok – Ma Seok-do
Lee Joon-hyuk – Joo Sung-chul
Munetaka Aoki – Ricky
Lee Beom-soo – Jang Tae-soo
Kim Min-jae – Kim Man-jae
Lee Ji-hoon – Yang Jong-soo
Kim Do-geon – Jung David
Ko Kyu-pil – Cherry
Jeon Seok-ho – Kim Yang-ho
Ryu Sung-hyun – Jung Gyung-sik
Jun Kunimura – Ichizo