26th Far East Film Festival: “The Roundup: Punishment” Review

In The Roundup: Punishment Ma Dong-seok strikes again… and again, and again in this rip-roaring action thriller that’ll have everyone’s hearts pumping. The fourth film in the franchise, Punishment sees detective Ma Seok-do (Ma) try to deliver just that after young Korean man Jo Sung-jae is killed in the Philippines and his mother begs the…

“The Roundup” Review

When The Outlaws, written and directed by Kang Yoon-sung, came out in 2017, the film became the third highest-grossing film of that year in South Korea. The production had enough thrills and suspense to satisfy even the most jaded sensation-seekers. It took a few years before the second instalment, The Roundup, was released onto the…

21st Udine Far East Film Festival: Unstoppable Review

Ma Dong-seok is unstoppable. In 2018, the actor starred in a record-breaking five films: Champion, Along With The Gods: The Last 49 Days, The Soul-Mate, The Villagers and Unstoppable, and it seems that he is keeping himself just as busy in 2019. His final work of 2018, the action thriller Unstoppable, directed by Kim Min-ho, screened…

The 12th London Korean Film Festival: The Outlaws Review

Gangster themes have been featured in South Korean cinema since the 1970’s, but they only became popular in the early 1990’s. Various productions ‘promoted’ the image of an ‘honourable’ mobster; however, in the past decade or so, films took on a more vicious approach to the subject matter; they became more brutal, with homicides and…