The Roundup: Punishment

The Roundup: Punishment is a 2024 South Korean action crime film directed by Heo Myung-haeng and stars Ma Dong-seok, Kim Mu-yeol, Park Ji-hwan and Lee Dong-hwi. It is the fourth installment of The Roundup series and the sequel to The Roundup: No Way Out.

The Roundup: Punishment was selected in the 'Berlinale Special Gala' section at the 74th Berlin International Film Festival and was screened on February 23, 2024. It was released theatrically on April 24, 2024 in IMAX and 4DX screening formats and received positive response from critics.

, The Roundup: Punishment is the second highest-grossing Korean film of 2024, with a gross of US$83.5 million and 11 million admissions. It is also the eighth highest-grossing film in South Korean film history.

Plot
In Philippines, Baek Chang-gi, a former Korean Special Forces and current head of an online gambling organization, kills his worker Jo Sung-jae as he attempted an escape. Chang Dong-cheol, the casino admin, promises Baek to increase his share in exchange for shutting down a rival casino and take over their members. Baek forms a violent raid on the rival's server and take the members data, but Chang doesn't fulfill his promise. Baek feels inadequately compensated, where he flies back to South Korea to confront Chang.

Meanwhile, Detective Ma Seok-do investigates a possible case of online money laundering committed by Jo, but he learns about Jo's gruesome death. Jo's body is sent back to South Korea, where Ma studies the autopsy report and realizes that the case might have much deeper bearings. Jo’s grieving mother pleads with Ma to deliver justice for her son and takes her own life, which makes Ma determined to capture the culprits. Ma joins the agency's Cyber Investigation team, where they trace Jo's employment history and data backup in the cloud to a money laundering joint, where they apprehend the manager Choi Yu-seong. Ma discovers that he and the Cyber Investigation team are dealing with an online gambling ring, where he approaches Jang Yi-soo for help as he had previously ventured into the industry.

Jang reveals his establishment was raided by the Emperor's Casino, who seeks to monopolize the online gambling industry. Baek meets with Chang in his isolated villa, who reveals he is working on a cryptocurrency scheme under the name of QM Holdings with President Kwon as the face and is pushing to register it in the exchange. Chang tells Baek to accompany Ko to bribe the exchange representative. Impatient, Baek kills Ko and threatens the representative to accept the bribe. Baek also assassinates Choi to stop him from standing witness. Concerned with Baek's uncontrollable actions, Chang orders Kwon to eliminate Baek.

Ma attempts to invade Chang's cryptocurrency opening event to investigate the possible link between QM Holdings and Emperor's Casino, but is ambushed by Baek and his men. Ma manages to subdue one of the attackers, but Baek escapes and injures a civilian. Furious with lack of progress, the police chief disbands Ma's investigation team. However, Ma begs the police agency commissioner to continue with the investigation. With the approval from the police agency commissioner and Jang's knowhow, the team launches a fake casino operation to lure Emperor's Casino into raiding them.

Joining up with the PNP, they raid back Emperor's Casino server and manages to trace the data to Korea, confirming that QM Holdings is indeed the front of Emperor's Casino. After defeating Kwon's goons, Baek conspires with Kwon to obtain Chang's admin key and kills the latter. After duping and killing Chang, Baek takes the server data stored in the villa to reestablish the ring overseas, while leaving the rest for Kwon. The police storm the villa before Kwon finishes gathering the money. Ma personally confronts Baek and a brutal fight ensues in which Ma defeats Baek and arrests him. Later, the team pay their respects to Jo and his mother memorial, while Jang gets arrested for impersonating a cop after flaunting his fake badge which Ma had given him.

Main

 * Ma Dong-seok as Ma Seok-do, lieutenant of the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency Investigation team.
 * Kim Mu-yeol as Baek Chang-ki, former Korean Special Forces and current head of an online gambling organization. He is the lead villain in the film.
 * Park Ji-hwan as Jang Yi-soo (Chinese: 張夷帥, Zhang Yishuai), an arcade's chairman.
 * Lee Dong-hwi as Chang Dong-cheol, an IT genius and young CEO of the coin industry. who was killed by Baek Chang-gi.

Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency

 * Lee Beom-soo as Jang Tae-soo, the captain of the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency Investigation team.
 * Kim Min-jae as Kim Man-jae, a detective of the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency Investigation team, and Ma Seok-do's dependable right-hand man.
 * Lee Ji-hoon as Yang Jong-su, a senior detective of the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency Investigation team.
 * Kim Do-geon as Jung David, a rookie detective of the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency Investigation team.
 * Lee Joo-bin as Han Ji-soo, a detective of the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency Cyber Investigation Team.
 * Kim Shin-bi as Kang Nam-soo, a detective of the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency Cyber Investigation Team.

Emperor Casino

 * Kim Ji-hoon as Cho Ji-hoon, former Korean Special Forces, and Baek Chang-gi's subordinate, director of the online gambling organization. He is the semi-lead villain if the film.
 * Ahn Sung-bong as Jason, former Korean Special Forces, and Baek Chang-gi's subordinate, member of the online gambling organization.
 * Ryu Ji-hoon as Manager Lee, a manager of the Philippines online gambling organization.
 * Bae Jae-won as Choi Yu-seong, a member of the online gambling organization and in charge of money laundering. He was killed by Baek Chang-ki.

QM Holdings

 * Hyun Bong-sik as President Kwon
 * Kim Myung-ki as Representative Ko Jae-hyuk. He was killed by Baek Chang-ki.

Seoul Casino

 * Kim Young-woong as President Cheon's man
 * Kwak Ja-hyung as President Cheon

Others

 * Lee Sang-jin as Drug delivery man
 * Baek Seung-hwan as Jo Sung-jae, Chang Dong-cheol's subordinate and a worker who was killed by Baek Chang-ki.
 * Im Seo-ah as Jang Yi-soo's Girlfriend 1
 * Komleva Zoia as Jang Yi-soo's Girlfriend 2
 * Lee Han-sol as Jang Yi-soo's Subordinate 1
 * Hong Sang-woo as Jang Yi-soo's Subordinate 2
 * Kim Ho-jun as Casino salesman
 * Nico Antonio as Philippines National Police officer. He was killed by Baek Chang-ki.

Special appearances

 * Kwon Il-yong as Commissioner of the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency.
 * Park Bo-kyung as a Pathologist
 * Bae Hae-sun as Jo Sung-jae's mother

Production
In August 2022, it was reported that Kim Mu-yeol and Lee Dong-hwi joined the cast of the film as villains. In September of the same year Lee Beom-soo and Kim Min-jae confirmed in separate interviews during filming of The Roundup: No Way Out that they will be appearing in the next film of the series.

The cast of the film was confirmed on November 18, 2022, and the same day principal photography began. In February 2023, it was reported that on February 19th filming in the Philippines began.

Release
The film launched its pre-sales in May 2023 at Cannes Film Market held in conjunction with the 2023 Cannes Film Festival. It was sold to United States, Europe and Asia.

The film was accepted to the 74th Berlin International Film Festival, where it had its world premiere on February 23, 2024.

The film was pre-sold in 164 countries globally. It will be released in May 2024 in Australia, New Zealand, Taiwan, Mongolia, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, Brunei, North America, the United Kingdom, Cambodia, and Thailand.

After its world premiere, it was released theatrically in South Korea on April 24, 2024, in IMAX and 4DX formats.

The film was showcased in 'Prime Picks' at the 23rd New York Asian Film Festival on July 27, 2024.

The film is set to play at the Fantasia International Film Festival on July 31, 2024.

Soundtrack
All Composition and Arrangement by Yoon Il-sang and lyrics by Lee Seung-ho.

Box office
The film was released on April 24, 2024 on 2,930 screens. On its opening day, the film finished in first place at the South Korean box office with 821,631 admissions and a gross of US$4,911,392, breaking the highest opening for a film released in 2024 in South Korea, additionally surpassing the opening of The Roundup (2022) of 467,525 people and The Roundup: No Way Out (2023) of 740,874 people, thus setting a new record for the highest opening in the history of the The Roundup (film series). It is also among the top 4 openings for the Korean films of all time. The film topped the South Korean weekend box office in its opening weekend, grossing US$20,858,786 from 2,918,560 admissions. It kept its number position on the South Korean box office for consecutive four weekends from April 28 to May 19, 2024.

On April 27, the fourth day of its release, the film exceeded 2 million admissions, and the next day on April 28, it surpassed 4 million viewers. On May 26, within 33 days of its release it registered 11 million viewers.

, the film has grossed US$79,337,169 from 11,500,775 admissions, making it the second highest grossing film among the South Korean films released in 2024. The film has grossed $83,539,202 worldwide as per Box Office Mojo.

Critical response
On the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes website, the film has an approval rating of 89% based on 18 reviews, with an average rating of 6.9/10.

Clarence Tsui of South China Morning Post rated the film 3/5 and lauded the sound effects writing, "The simple story is bolstered by brilliant sound effects, Ma’s endearing tech illiteracy, and Park Ji-hwan’s performance as his sidekick."

Wendy Ide reviewing the film at Berlinale, wrote in ScreenDaily "Don Lee packs a punch in the fourth instalment of the popular Korean action comedy series."

Stephanie Bunbury, in her review at Berlinale for Deadline said, "The Roundup: Punishment makes no intellectual demands on its audience, as that isn’t what it’s there for." Concluding her review she wrote, "In a genre where constant bafflement over plot details is the norm, this series stands out as carefully crafted, and fun, obviously."

Writing for RogerEbert.com, Robert Daniels said, "Punishment” is a rock 'em, sock 'em edition that pretty much delivers all the open-hand slaps, booming punches, and flying knees to the head you want."

Jessica Kiang writing in Variety gave positive review and praised; the director Heo Myung-haeng, saying "Heo Myeong-haeng proves to be a very efficient action director"; the cinematographer Lee Sung-je, expressing, "Lee Sung-je has an unerring instinct for placing the camera where it can best exploit the contrast between the speed of Lee’s movements and the resigned stoicism of his expression"; and the sound designer Gong Tae-won, stating, "But if there’s a below-the-line standout craftsperson it’s probably Gong Tae-won, who manages to foley consistently satisfying punch noises." Kiang opined, "[the film] sees Don Lee's Detective Ma find a new bunch of bad guys to beat up and is basically perfect, no notes."

Niklas Michels, in his Berlinale-related review for the German Arthaus magazine Kino-Zeit, wrote that The Roundup: Punishment is a film for the cinema in which villains are simply evil without being a perversion of a hero. He drew parallels to the John Wick franchise, in which he emphasized that although the films could keep up in terms of action, John Wick was a much more subversive story. In The Roundup, dramaturgy was only located in the thrill of the final battle. He praised the film for its craft, but added that the series was treading water.

Darcy Paquet writing on Korean Film Organisation website said, "Director Heo balances this perfectly, delivering what may well be the most dynamic and entertaining Roundup film yet."