2023 provided a proper glut of delicious action flicks. In addition to the obvious theatrical blockbusters like John Wick: Chapter 4, Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, and Teenage Mutant Turtles: Mutant Mayhem, we also got Sisu, Extraction 2, The Three Musketeers: D’Artagnan, and the third entry into the Crime City series, The Roundup: No Way Out (범죄도시 3), led by actor Ma Dong-seok (also known as Don Lee). Helmed by The Roundup (2022) director Lee Sang-yong and written by Ma (The Roundup), Lee (The Roundup), Kim Min-sung (The Roundup), and Cha Woo-jin, No Way Out shifts gears by switching up the location and enemy type that series hero Detective Ma Seok-do (Ma) goes up against, resulting in a film that is less mystery/thriller than the previous two, leaning more into the action and physical comedy. The result is an action-packed rollercoaster that’s as much fun the first time as all the times after. Now, thanks to Capelight Pictures and MPI Home Video, ahead of the fourth entry, Punishment (Beom-Joe-do-si 4), releasing on April 24th in Korea, U.S. audiences can put their hands on No Way Out without fear of a big hit coming their way from Detective Ma — just be wary of the edition you snag.
If you’re looking for a spoiler-free exploration of No Way Out, head over to the initial theatrical release review. Moving forward, we may hit you with details like a surprise 1-2 punch from Detective Ma.
Right: Don Lee/Ma Dong-seok as Ma Seok-do in THE ROUNDUP: NO WAY OUT. Photos courtesy of Capelight Pictures.
Now attached to Metro Investigations, Detective Ma and his team find themselves on the trail of a new drug, Hiper, when a girl leaps from a building to her death after taking it. What Det. Ma and his team don’t realize is that their investigation will have them unknowingly jump between the Japanese yakuza who forbade this drug being distributed on the streets; the yakuza member, Tomo (Ahn Se-ho), who defied the order; and the crooked cop, Captain Joo Seong-cheol (Lee Jun-hyuk), overseeing the Korean distribution operation.
L-R: Lee Jun-hyuk as Joo Seong-cheol and Ahn Se-ho as Tomo in THE ROUNDUP: NO WAY OUT. Photos courtesy of Capelight Pictures.
One of the great things about the execution of the Crime City series is how audiences can jump in and out without needing to see any other iteration. It’ll certainly help to understand the balance of multiple tones (something which these films do with a beautiful ease), as well as the various characters and their histories together, but it’s not required. With No Way Out, for instance, actor Park Ji-hwan (The Outlaws; The Roundup) and his character Jang I-soo only appears in an extra scene at the end, providing the time jump from 2015 to 2018 in which Punishment appears to take place. Park played a significant role in both the first film, The Outlaws (2017) and The Roundup (2022), but the void of his specific energy and character type is replaced by Shin Hyeon-yong as Open Sesame (so named by Det. Ma but listed as “Open Door” everywhere else) , someone who can get Ma and his team into the clubs he needs to investigate under the radar. Then there’s the member of Tomo’s crew that gets swept up by Ma and his team to give them information, whose treatment goes past police brutality, but it’s all oddly forgiven in the execution because Det. Ma makes all of his interactions with bad guys exceedingly clear — give up now with the “or else” silent as Ma’s size and physical performance are loud and clear; by ignoring the warning, the only option left is being on the receiving end of a hard slap or a close-fist punch into nighty-night land. The point of all this being that there’s not much of a mythology to Det. Ma aside from how he operates, but new audiences can pick it up quickly while old ones revel in the staging of the action and execution of comedy. For instance, it’s never not funny that Det. Ma’s introduction in each film is him on the way somewhere, running late, and stumbling into a sequence of mischief where he’s got to stop someone from hurting someone else before moving on with a “I was never here.”
L-R: Don Lee/Ma Dong-seok as Ma Seok-do and Kim Min-jae as Kim Man-jae in THE ROUNDUP: NO WAY OUT. Photos courtesy of Capelight Pictures.
The strength and freshness of No Way Out comes in the structure and execution of the villain of the piece: Lee Jun-hyuk (I Saw the Devil) as Captain Joo Seong-cheol. One the one hand, it enables Crime City to shift their focus from the usual murderers and psychopaths that come to Korea for revenge or mayhem as depicted in the prior two films; on the other, it depicts Korean law enforcement as just as manipulative/opportunistic as any other police force. It also offers a mirror image for Det. Ma, enabling the audience to see that Ma could be far worse if not for his seeming interest in upholding the law, even if he’s willing to bend it in order to get information from law-breakers. Unlike the prior two films where the villains were a bit more mysterious and their intents kept close for a while, No Way Out more quickly establishes Joo as a the primary villain of this story and then makes it known that he’s a police officer, too, making the things we see him do in the opening all the more horrible. By not keeping his official identity a secret for the bulk of the film, No Way Out is able to be more of an open cat-and-mouse game, which is, of course, thrown into chaos by the arrival of Ricky (Munetaka Aoki), the head killer for the yakuza bent on getting Joo and his stash of Hiper. The big problem with this aspect, though, is that Ricky is meant to be a big threat for Joo, someone whom Joo has to out-think as he can’t out-fight him. So when Det. Ma beats him down in a sequence that’s hilariously set up, there’s really no way for the final fight between Ma and Joo to be anything other than as-expected … and not just because Punishment is incoming and Ma has to survive to be in it.
Center: Munetaka Aoki as Ricky in THE ROUNDUP: NO WAY OUT. Photos courtesy of Capelight Pictures.
For the purposes of this home release review, we’ll be focusing on the DVD edition as it is the version provided by Alliance Entertainment and Distribution Solutions for MPI Home Video.
Folks, this is bare-bones release. The packaging is your basic clear plastic DVD case, which does afford the liner to include additional artwork (a scene featuring Aoki’s Ricky), but that’s it. No booklet, no notes, no nothing. The DVD art does feature a stylized version of the title of the film and just the neck/head of Ma as Det. Ma, clearly taken from the same image used on the cover. In terms of on-disc materials, viewers are afforded a Dolby Digital 5.1 audio track to be enjoyed via the original Korean audio track or an English-language dub. Otherwise, it’s a trailer and previews for other MPI releases.
Lee Jun-hyuk as Joo Seong-cheol in THE ROUNDUP: NO WAY OUT. Photos courtesy of Capelight Pictures.
No Way Out is also available in Blu-ray and 4K UHD mediabook, but as that’s not on-hand to make a comparison, what follows should be treated as an FYI/warning should you decide to go the DVD route — there are a few instances where the audio blows out entirely on the DVD and at least one instance where the disc appears to skip between scenes. When speaking on the former, a good example of this is in the final confrontation between Det. Ma and Joo Seong-cheol when Ma hits Joo with one of his signature sledgehammer punches, the final one in fact, and the impact is marked with a loud and quick abrasive feedback. It doesn’t always happen during a fight sequence, but more than once is a problem for those who want to get lost in the fight and not feel battered themselves. For the latter, it’s only once and it’s hard to tell if it is a skip or just the most odd of hard transitions as there’s no access to the original screener viewed in 2023 for the original review (I have no memory of it occurring and no mention of it in my initial review) and I don’t have access to another home release edition to compare it against. However, I will update this review with confirmation once I can compare the two as my personal order of the 4K UHD mediabook is enroute (because these films deserve to be in their best quality within my collection).
Don Lee/Ma Dong-seok as Ma Seok-do in THE ROUNDUP: NO WAY OUT. Photos courtesy of Capelight Pictures.
Even if the home release doesn’t demonstrate much love for the entry, that doesn’t mean that you still won’t have a good time (re)watching it. The DVD edition is good enough and still better than streaming off of Prime Video or Tubi simply because of the lack of data compression that films undergo when viewed through the internet. Is it great that the DVD has the problem it does? Nope. Is it still better than nothing? Absolutely — especially when one considers that The Outlaws still doesn’t have an official Region 1 (North American) physical release to complete a collection. Just be sure to know your options with the version you pick up.
Update 4/11/24:
Using the 4K UHD edition to check the same scenes that had issues on the DVD, none are present. May be an issue of the DVD not being able to handle the output of information. So if you’re planning to snag No Way Out, consider Blu-ray or 4K UHD in order to get the optimal viewing experience.
The Roundup: No Way Out Special Features:
- English-language Dub
Available on VOD and digital March 1st, 2024.
Available on 4K UHD, Blu-ray, and DVD April 9th, 2024.
For more information, head to the official Capelight Pictures The Roundup: No Way Out webpage.
To purchase, head to the official MPI Home Video The Roundup webpage.
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Categories: Films To Watch, Home Release, Recommendation
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