The Roundup

Until May 2022, no Korean film had sold ten million tickets since the pandemic began. 'The Roundup' did it, and by the end of the year it had reached 12.69 million admissions in South Korea, the biggest local hit of 2022. It's the second film in the series that began with 'The Outlaws' in 2017, and Ma Dong-seok, known abroad as Don Lee and seen in 'Train to Busan' and 'Eternals', co-produces and returns as Ma Seok-do, a detective who settles most things with his fists.

Four years after the Garibong-dong raid, Ma and his boss, Captain Jeon Il-man, fly to Ho Chi Minh City to bring home a Korean criminal who has handed himself in there. The errand goes wrong when the prisoner tells them about Kang Hae-sang, a man who kidnaps and kills Korean tourists and squeezes their families for money.

Kang leaves no witnesses, and Ma and Jeon are far from home, with no authority and the Vietnamese police telling them to drop it. From there the hunt moves between Vietnam and Seoul, with Kang chased by the police and by people who want revenge. He's played by Son Suk-ku, who was breaking through on TV that same spring with 'My Liberation Notes' and makes Kang cold and brutal.

It's the first feature from Lee Sang-yong, an assistant director on the first film, and Choi Gwi-hwa and Park Ji-hwan are back too. The pandemic wrecked the Vietnam shoot: a skeleton crew filmed what it needed there, and much of the city was rebuilt in Korea with sets and digital effects. Vietnam then refused to let it be released, saying it was too violent.

Reviews were very good, singling out Ma's charisma, the humour and the fights, and it won the Focus Asia audience award at Sitges in 2022. It opened in a handful of North American cinemas the same week as in Korea and reached UK cinemas on 20 October 2022. 'The Roundup: No Way Out' followed in 2023 and 'The Roundup: Punishment' in 2024.

• Action
• Crime
• Thriller