Detective Ma Seok-do (Ma Dong-seok aka Don Lee) plays by his own rules.
Trying to keep the peace between Chinese-Korean gangs, he finds his job more difficult when a new, ruthless player, Jang Chen (Yoon Kye-sang) begins a war to take over all criminal enterprises in the community…
“You alone?”
“Yeah, I’m still single”
I heard good things about the Roundup movies (they are known as the Crime City series in South Korea). With the third movie out now in New Zealand theatres, I thought it was a good time to catch up.
A starring vehicle for Ma Dong-seok (Train to Busan), 2017’s The Outlaws is the kind of movie that American action movie fans complain that Hollywood does not make any more.
I only became aware of them last year through the Action for Everyone podcast and film critic Vyce Victus’s euphoric endorsement of them and their mighty leading man.
Detective Ma Seok-do is a mythic hero, a figure of unique talents and intelligence.
Befitting his unique status, he gets a great entrance - walking into the middle of a street fight while talking on his phone.
Without hanging up, he breaks one of the combatants’ wrists and orders the other to disarm. Then he calls over a pair of nervous cops to take over and carries on his way.
From this opening, Ma Seok-do is established as his own man, and an unstoppable force.
He navigates the warring factions of the underworld by blackmail and physical threat, without fear of reprisal. He solves a potential gang war by bullying the leaders into making peace.
He works outside the rules, but with his own pragmatic sense of right and wrong. At one point, he takes a gang leaders’ money, and later uses it to bribe informants during his investigation.
Detective Ma may not follow the book but he understands people and knows how to play them e.g. using the Captain’s (Choi Gwi-hwa) vanity to keep his unit on the case with the promise of publicity for a large number of arrests. A curious collection of contradictions - Ma is willing to use violence but when a suspect faces the death penalty, he tries to save his life.
In the role, Ma Dong-seok’s deadpan delivery and imposing physicality are a delight. I was trying to think of a comparison amongst Western action stars, but the only person who vaguely resembles him is Ray Winstone - although Winstone does not have Ma Dong-seok’s warmth. Despite the character’s brutality, the star has an inherent sense of decency. It is a bizarre dynamic, but aided by the film around him.
This is a dark comedy, in which vigilante cops are justified by cartoonishly evil villains. Those villains are the Black Dragon gang, three grinning killers who delight in hacking anyone who gets in their way to pieces.
Yoon Kye-sang is great as the villain Jang Chen - in spite of the comic edge to Ma’s brute strength, the film does not blunt Chen’s depravity with jokes. His performance is a slow-burn of tension, bracketed by explosions of rage.
While people die, this movie is not as bloodthirsty as its American equivalents, at least in terms of bodycount. Chen and his colleagues are responsible for all the fatalities, which range in ferocity from stabbing to dismemberment. Despite the scope of their violence, the villains are not punished with death. Instead, thanks to Detective Ma, they wind up as varieties of mince patty. Still alive, but as sacks of meat and broken bones.
The filmmaking is functional and tonally balanced. The humour is laced throughout the film without undermining the seriousness of the villain’s story. The action is solid, ending with a memorable final brawl, an epic demolition of an airport bathroom. The film also has a clever sense of misdirection - when a young witness tries to call Ma, the editing makes it seem like the detective is answering.
A personal highlight is Detective Ma’s hapless Captain (Choi Gwi-hwa), who is constantly undermined (subordinates talk through his briefing; Ma pickpockets his wallet; he is blocked from accessing the crime scene in the airport bathroom by staff who want to bill him for the damage).
The Outlaws is a great action thriller, and a superb introduction to its star.
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