Brief Story Line
Story was set in the year 2018 where Detective Ma Seok-do (Ma Dong-seok - Eternals, Along With the Gods: The Last 49 Days etc) with his partner Kim Man-jae (Kim Min-jae - The Devil's Deal, Shadow Detective TV series etc) and other team members were investigating drug operation and stumbled into major illegal online gambling managed from the Philippines. Since it was related to cyber crime, their captain Jang Tae-su (Lee Beom-soo - Come Back Home, Unfinished etc) sought the help from cyber team led by Detective Han (Lee Joo-bin - Money Heist: Korea - Joint Economic Area TV series, Queen of Tears TV series etc).
Apparently the gambling site was set up by Jang Dong-cheol (Lee Dong-hwi - Extreme Job, Big Bet TV series etc), the IT Genius who had bigger purpose in mind, while the ruthless Baek Chang-gi (Kim Mo-yeul - The Gangster, The Cop and The Devil, Juvenille Justice TV series etc) was handling the operation side, including taking over competitions and force recruitment of programmers. With lack of experience in handling cyber crime, Detective Ma decided to also enlist unofficial help from his long time "informant" Jang Yi-soo (Park Ji-hwan - The Pirates: The Last Royal Treasure, Gyeongseong Creature TV series etc).
So how would the story conclude? You could find out in this movie.
End of Brief Story Line
After watching the three previous movies in the Roundup series, I was obviously intrigued to find out what other crime and villains that the monster Detective Ma would encounter again. My wife and I who have been accustomed to his style of fighting were definitely looking forward to him punishing the bad guys in a very satisfying manner. And once again Ma Dong-seok truly delivered. It was always so entertaining watching him gave all those heavy punches to everyone who were in his way, particularly during the climax fight.
Although the fights did not seem to be as abundant as in the prior installments, but somehow I felt this one had better quality in term of story telling. The way the cyber team was inserted and the inclusion of the hilarious and gullible informant Jang Yi-soo was brilliant and did not seem too forced. In fact their appearances added more humor (the sting operation was just one of the several funny moments). Another part that made us had fun was Detective Ma's difficulty in understanding the technical terms with his apparent not-understanding look on his face.
We also felt that the sound effects were better now despite seeing it in the studio with very standard sound system. It made the fights even more convincing especially with the sound of knives piercing the body, or the thuds and punches which sounded realistic. Kim Mo-yeul and his right hand man (not too sure what his name was) were also good enough as Ma's latest adversaries and even managed to hurt him a bit. However there was a bit of small confusion towards the end as they moved back and forth between two countries (my wife felt maybe easier to give a note on the location). But it did not have any major effect on our enjoyment.
This time the movie was directed by Heo Myung-haeng who had worked together with Ma in Badland Hunters. Aside from the cast mentioned above, there were plenty of other support characters as well whom my wife recognized before. It has duration of 109 minutes which was sufficient to provide the story and action. Oh there was no mid or post end credit scene here, unlike in The Roundup: No Way Out which had one that directly linked to this movie (perhaps they shot it back to back with this movie). Anyway without the hint to next film, not sure if there would be another one yet, although with the current success, it is looking more likely they would do it again. After all Ma Dong-seok already mentioned several times that he was planning to make 8 of them.
Overall this was another entertaining movie of Detective Ma with his partners. Even after 4 installments, we still found ourselves enjoying the film with non complicated investigation and easy to relate to, plus obviously the action and its humor. My wife and I do not mind watching the future movies as we still had fun. Even the critics seem to enjoy and it received some praises as well. So if you like all the previous movies in the series, then you would no doubt love this.
Mike's movie moments rating: 4 out of 5 stars
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