Variety calls Ma Seokdo, played by Don Lee, a bull in a tea shop whose brute force devastates a difficult situation.
Step into the world of The Roundup: No Way Out, the sequel to The Roundup. Seven years have passed since Seokdo’s team was sent to Vietnam on a mission to extradite a dangerous Korean fugitive. The twist in the story was the fugitive seemed oddly eager to return home, raising questions about the true nature of their mission.
In the sequel, we meet up with the likable hunk, who collaborates with a new squad to investigate a murder case at home. Seokdo learns the case involves busting dealers on a new synthetic drug, Hiper. He digs deeper.
All the while, a Japanese mafia boss orchestrating the new drug, Ichioz, played cleverly by Ju Kunimura, keeps looking for trouble, and the drug distributor named Ricky, played by Munetaka Aoki, and his gang arrive in Korea to add havoc to the mayhem. Here, the entertainment flourishes as things go out of control.
The film is excellent because, like the earlier films, it’s invariably entertaining and engaging. Watching Don Lee play Seokdo, who punches blockheads and more, is hilarious—he’s no Dirty Harry. Though a reviewer compared it to Beverly Hills Cop and Lethal Weapon, this spontaneous film stands on its own. It’s true to the South Korean culture: a vulnerable and assuming hero saves the day.
Lee Sang-Yong directed the third title skillfully and brilliantly, as he did The Roundup. The movie won the Blue Dragon Award as the top box office winner of the year in South Korea. The Roundup: No Way Out also nailed the Audience Award at the 2023 Sitges Film Festival in Spain. Another sequel is in the works and will arrive in 2024.
Enjoy this action-packed South Korean film by Lee Sang-yong. The Roundup stars Don Lee and CHOI Guy-hwa as two South Korean cops. Geumcheon Police’s Major Crimes Unit takes on missing to repatriate a fugitive who fled to Vietnam.
Lee plays a beast cop — detective Ma, pounding and slugging his way to solving the crime and situation with the fugitive. GHOI Guy-hwa plays the partner. Together, they intuitively realize that something is wrong. The suspect’s willingness to turn himself in to help uncover a series of crimes.
A terrifying killer name Dang Hae-sang, played by SON Sukku, is behind the suspect’s wavering and evasion. Detective Ma and his force of cops investigate, going across two countries. Witness bloody harsh crimes left behind by Kang Hae.
This film is for fans of action, South Korean and comedy. The humor gives this movie levity to the dire situation. Action sequences are mesmerizing and unbelievable in the delivery. It’s worth watching with a large bowl of popcorn and friends.
Her husband, daughter, land and innocence ripped from her, she embarks on a brutal journey of retribution and revenge.
Written and directed by Victoria Wharfe McIntyre, The Flood is her debut feature film. The movie takes place during WWII. McIntyre brings a flavor of the Wild West throughout the movie. “The Flood is an action-packed, dramatic western-styled adventure that uses our nation’s history as a framework to support an uncompromising, exacting and romantic and delicate female-driven story that acts as a parable for race relations in our country.”
“It is a world of juxtapositions and grave injustice as we move through the lives of black, white and women of color, young and old, rich and poor, contrasting their grief, love, loss and rage against a ruthless rural patriarchy in WWII Australia.”
The story starts when Jarah’s Irish drover father and South Sea Islander mother die during a flood. She’s sent to live on Pastor Gerald Mackay’s mission, played by Peter McAllum.
Here, she meets Waru, an Aboriginal boy who becomes the love of her life and future husband. Jarah, played by Alexis Lane, and Waru, played by Shaka Cook, grow up together and have a daughter Binda, played by Simone Landers.
When WWII is in full swing, Waru and the mission men receive citizenship for military service. Waru goes to war against Jarah’s wishes.
While he was gone, the Aboriginal Welfare Board removed the children from the mission and subsumed their land. Jarah finds herself an enslaved person on a wealthy landholder’s estate and loses contact with Binda, who is working on the now-retired Gerald Mackay’s cattle farm.
Waru returns from the war with his mate Minto, played by Aaron Jeffery, a white soldier who owes his life to Waru on the battlefield. When Waru discovers what has happened to Binda and Jarah, he sets out to recover his family. Waru unwittingly kills Gerald’s son Kelly and flees with Binda to find Jarah.
Gerald sends for Kelly’s brother Shamus, played by Dean Kyrwood, and his brutal black tracking gang. Shamus arrives in town to find the local men incarcerated. Jarah is determined to use her to lure Waru back from the bush. Shamus and his gang violate Jarah, igniting a rage in her that stokes the fires of brutal and bloody revenge. Jarah forms an unlikely alliance with Pam, a mature white woman, played by Karen Garnsey, who has experienced her torment and is ready to act against the men and their atrocities.
Jarah plans, and with Pam’s help, she escapes her cell and travels with Minto to find Waru and Binda, who Shamus has captured.
Shamus kills Binda and drags Waru and Jarah back to town. Binda’s death transforms Jarah into something altogether new, something even she does not understand. She plunges into the unchartered territory of her darkness.
Jarah escapes once more and demands Waru’s help to destroy the town.
Through his own profound wartime experience, Waru understands that revenge will not ease Jarah’s pain, but he supports her.
With Waru’s help, Jarah wipes out the town and discovers Waru is correct. Her agony has not eased, but she is not ready to give up this approach. Jarah, Waru and Waru’s sister Maggie, played by Dalara Williams, flee, taking Shamus.
Jarah tortures Shamus, and eventually, he breaks. To Jarah’s consternation, Maggie determines to help Shamus connect once more to the goodness deep within. Through Maggie’s kindness, Shamus embarks on his inner journey of memory and feeling and can see he is a product of generations and generations of unending brutality. A seed of healing and hope births within him.
Jarah and Waru confront their rage and sorrow at the loss of Binda and the schism within their relationship.
Eventually, their love carries them through the darkness. Maggie is a pillar of compassion, understanding and spirit and is a catalyst for healing between them all.
Minto finds the near-dead Binda and brings her to Pam, a nurse in WWI. Together, they save her life. Gerald finds and takes them, with the police, to find Waru and Jarah and bring them to justice.
In a classic western show-down and shoot-out, Shamus willingly sacrifices himself for Maggie. Binda returns from the dead to her parents. Gerald goes the way of the dinosaurs, and Jarah touches on the prospect of forgiveness.
They find a fresh path of reconciliation and redemption between those who remain.
I am so glad that not everyone died. Justice is not as it appears, workable based on the circumstances of trying to survive.
The Flood garnered some awards at the Sydney Women’s International Film Festival: Best Director, Best Australian Film, and Best Actress for Alexis Lane.
Written and directed by Benedikt Erlingsson, Woman of War follows Halla, played by Halldóra Geirharðsdótti, who seems mild-mannered and friendly to her neighbors. On the contrary, she is a vigilante against the aluminum industry. At night, she crusades to destroy the polluters and causes of climate change.
The newspapers report the vandalism calling her plight as “The Woman of the Mountain.” Halla is scathing mad using a vicious, yet effective, tirade against the Iceland aluminum industry. Her campaign keeps her functioning “normal” but jeopardizes her dream.
A dream of becoming a mother to an orphaned girl from Ukraine, Halla ups the ante, becoming more daring with her antics to stop the aluminum company. She finds herself fighting against time as she questions whether her second life as a notorious eco-terrorist is worth the sacrifice of her impending motherhood.
Filmed with the vivid backdrop of hills in Reykjavik, Iceland, the movie marks another collaboration with Erlingsson and Geirharðsdótti’s long working relationship. I admire Erlingsson’s ability to infuse drama and comedy while Geirharðsdótti’s knack for subtle points of humor drew me into the story. Her vicious tenacity and heart could have gone overboard but pulled back just in time with the introduction of fabled motherhood and discovering what it signifies to be a hero.
Geirharðsdótti carries the story of Halla, a 50-year-old independent woman with a quiet routine, though she leads a double life as a passionate environmental activist. The humor is subtle but effective as the drama builds, and she becomes bolder and bolder from petty vandalism to outright industrial sabotage. She triumphs pausing the negotiations between the Icelandic government and the corporation building a new aluminum smelter in her region.
The story shifts when Halla receives an unexpected letter confirming the adoption of a child. A little girl who waits for her in Ukraine. As Halla prepares to abandon her role as saboteur and savior of the Highlands to fulfill her dream of becoming a mother, she decides to plot one final attack to deliver the aluminum industry a crippling blow.
The final attack is suspenseful because “What if she gets caught?” Her goal to be a mother is no longer achievable. All her efforts are in vain, yet her crusade is for the children like her adopted daughter—securing a livable planet for the generations to come.
Watching the
movie until the end is worth it, though there are subtitles. DVDs are available
in the States with streaming available on the usual outlets.
Co-written and directed by Crystal Moselle as her first narrative feature, Skate Kitchen, follows an introverted teenage skateboarder named Camille, played by Rachelle Vinberg. She is from Long Island and meets and befriends an all-girl skateboarding group. The group is New York City-based called Skate Kitchen.
Moselle mentions in an interview, “I was originally going to do a feature documentary film, but after doing the short, and hanging out with Kim Yutani, who is one of the programmers at Sundance, she was just like, ‘Why don’t you do a feature version of this?’ I was like, ‘Yeah, you’re so right.’ I figured out a writer to work with. That January, we didn’t have a script or anything. We kind of just had a summary of what we wanted it to be. We went to Sundance and just started having meetings and financiers, and got the budget.”
In the movie, Camille becomes part of the in-crowd, and estranges from her mother, and falls for a mysterious skateboarder guy named Devon, played by Jaden Smith. Yet, their relationship proves to be trickier to navigate than mastering her skateboarding tricks.
Smith knew Vinberg before they worked on the movie together. They met on social media because Smith saw that Vinberg was a skateboarder and reached out to her. Moselle explains, “One day he hit Rachelle Vinberg up on Instagram! He just thought she was cool because she skateboards and he skateboards and we were like, ‘Oh, he should be in the movie.’ I randomly know his agent, so I was just like, ‘I have this film idea that Jaden might be into,’ so his agent got me a meeting completely separate from Rachelle. And it was months after that. And then I showed him the short film and he was like, ‘Oh I know that girl.’ We wanted his character to really authentically lead into the subculture of New York City skateboarding.
According to production notes, Moselle immersed herself in the lives of the skater girls and worked closely with them giving authenticity to the movie. “I was on the train and I was listening to them just chat, and they were super interesting and they had skateboards, and I asked them, “Would you guys want to do like a video project, something?” We exchanged numbers and when we met up, we just started hanging out and chatting. I just was super inspired by them. I didn’t really know much about being a female skater and how much intimidation they go through. I gave them the opportunity to do this short film with Miu Miu (That One Day) and I pitched them to do the short film. That went to the Venice Film Festival. From there it started to get a lot of attention and gain a lot of traction.”
The movie is gripping and combines poetic, atmospheric cinematography with spellbinding skating sequences. The movie captured my interest because, though I am not a skateboarder, I follow skateboarding movies. The experience of women in male-dominated sport tells the story of a girl who learns the importance of true friendship, loyalty, and self-discovery.
The rest of the cast members are Dede Lovelace, Nina Moran, Kabrina Adams, Ajani Russell, Jules Lorenzo, Brenn Lorenzo, Hisham Tawfiq, and Elizabeth Rodriguez.
The other screenwriters are Aslihan Unaldi and Jennifer Silverman. Moselle offered some insight on working with Unaldi. “There was a certain point in time where we had to shift the story and simplify it a lot more and Aslihan Unaldi came in and worked on it every day for like three months. We completely re-shifted the whole thing. She was really my collaborator on this, but it was all my ideas, and I wrote a lot of the script. I’ve never written a script before and we had to make this happen so quickly, because we had to shoot this film before these girls grew up, because right now they’re already too old for the film.”
Directed by Takashi Miike, Blade of the Immortal is his 100th film. Miike is best known for directing the popular samurai movie 13 Assassins about the end of Japan’s feudal era.
Immortal follows Manji, played honestly by Takuya Kimura, a highly skilled samurai, who becomes cursed with immortality after a legendary battle. The foreboding of being haunted by the brutal murder of his sister drives Manji to continue fighting evil. He cannot die and is cursed with the pain of being sliced and hacked with swords forever more.
I found myself chuckling a couple of times when his severed hand would magically snap back to his arm. The effects were done well but a couple of shots seemed fake.
Manji wants to be able to die and regain his soul. He comes across a young girl named Rin, played beautifully by Hana Sugisaki. Sugisaki also plays his sister, which offers a correlation between him helping Rin for the sake of his deceased sister.
He promises to help the young girl avenge her parents’ death. They were killed by a group of master swordsmen led by ruthless warrior Anotsu, played by Sôta Fukushi.
The movie is in Japanese and English with English subtitles. The story is well told because Manji’s mission changes him. Kimura portrayal of Manji captured my interest and kept me watching the movie because as he changes even Manji cannot believe what is happening to him. I am right there with him all the way.
For those who love samurai movies, this is a must to see. The Blu-ray Special Features include a poster gallery, cast interviews, which are educational for anyone who studies movies, trailers, and a poignant interview with Takuya Kimura.
From Alan Mak and Felix Chong, co-writers of The Departed and director of Infernal Affairs, the movie follows Lin Kai, played by Huang Xuan, in Extraordinary Mission. The movie is razor sharp with intense lighting that heightens the tension in each scene.
The movie takes place in Hong Kong where crime is center staged. Lin Kai is an undercover officer delegated to break through the Twin Eagles drug cartel. The story moves fast and the shots are tight. I never found my thoughts wandering. The subtitles were tough to follow at times because the movie moved fast with raw intensity.
Yihong Duan plays an impressive cartel boss and a firm conviction in his ruthlessness. Seeing both Xuan and Duan in scenes together was like watching a full charged emotional push-and-pull. Their scenes were not just a cat and mouse game. It was brutal and raw.
The movie takes a turn that I was not expecting. Xuan acting talent shines when Kai is coerced into gradual drug addiction while attempting to locate the cartel’s production base. Being strung out on drugs creates more complications when Kai realizes Eagle has been plotting a violent revenge against his supervisor Li Jianguo, played by Jiadong Xing, for over a decade.
The ending is brutal but fun to watch. The creative minds of Mak and Chong is a vision you don’t want to miss.
Written and directed by Herman Yau, Shock Wave is spellbinding with all the action scenes in the movie. The fact that it seized the #1 box office spot in China and Hong Kong when it hit theaters speaks about how much explosive action there is in the movie. Producing the movie on a $23 million budget, Shock Wave is one of Hong Kong’s highest grossing domestic movies for 2017. Take a look at the movie’s trailer, and you will see what I mean.
The movie follows, Cheung Choi-san, played by Andy Lau, as he works as a bomb disposal expert among the busy streets of Hong Kong. Along comes a terrorist who specializes in explosives, Hung Kai-pang, played by Jiang Wu, takes hold of the busy Cross-Harbor Tunnel. He threatens to kill hostages if his demands are not met.
This is a typical action movie plot, but the director executes these scenes is riveting, so unlike some American action movies. In Shock Wave, they are very realistic, almost scary. The movie is intense and kept my attention throughout even though there are English subtitles.
The movie has a flair for cat and mouse. Cheung effectively broke up Hung’s criminal gang, but in the course of the raid, Hung triumphs and escapes whereas his younger brother and allies are captured.
Seeking retribution for Cheung’s duplicity, Hung returns after seven years and plants a series of bombs in Hong Kong. The result is a public terror and attracts Cheung where he discovers the greatest plan for revenge.
The Blu-ray + DVD Combo is on the streets and includes an exclusive behind-the-scenes look at the making of the film, including an interview with Andy Lau. Andy Lau is the most popular actor in China. His interview is worth purchasing the DVD.
Directed by Shawn Crahan, Officer Downe is based on the graphic novel of the same name. The movie is a blood-soaked tale of resurrection, revenge, and justice as the story follows an immortal, crime-fighting police officer, played by Kim Coates, and his rookie sidekick, played by Tyler Ross, who learns that being stuck between doing what he thinks is right and what he thinks is best is not an easy task.
The best way to describe this movie is Sin City meets dark science technology. The L.A. policeman is repeatedly resurrected and returned to active duty through a mysterious technology. When a rookie officer named Gable arrives on the scene as backup, we get to see Downe in a different way because Gable discovers there’s much more to the super-cop than a mindless law enforcement super-cop warring against twisted over-the-top super-villains.
The way the movie is told with over the top acting and action might be enjoyable for those you are looking for mindless entertainment. There is no thinking involved with this movie but, like I said, you will be entertained. You might even laugh because it is so over-the-top and unreal.
Sure, there will be those who felt they wasted their time watching the movie because there really isn’t much to it besides mindless fun.
Directed by Hans Petter Moland and The New York Times critics’ pick, In Order of Disappearancestars Stellan Skarsgard, Pal Sverre Hagen and Bruno Ganz. The movie is filled with action and is constantly moving as a diehard thriller. The movie follows an honorable citizen, Nils, played by Skarsgard. He uncovers evidence that his son was murdered and a victim in a turf war between the local crime boss and his Serbian rivals. Following his discovery, Nils embarks on a quest for revenge.
The movie is very good because Nil is a fish out of the water. Introverted and hard-working snowplow driver Nils has just been named “Citizen of the Year.” When he receives news that his son has died of a heroin overdose, nothing seems to make sense.
Disbelieving the official report, Nils quickly uncovers evidence of the young man’s murder – a victim in a turf war between the local crime boss, known as “The Count”, and his Serbian rivals.
Armed with heavy machinery and a good amount of beginner’s godsend, Nils embarks upon a quest for revenge that soon escalates into a full-blown underworld gang war, with the body count spiraling ever higher and higher.
The movie is a rocket ride and hilarious in a very dark way. Skarsgard makes the movie great, and I have a fun time watching it.
