♦
Yoo Min-ho (played by So Ji-sub) is a suspect in the murder of his lover. He was arrested but later released because the arrest warrant was nullified. But that does not mean he is no longer a suspect. On the contrary, he is still the prime suspect and he needs to hire a defense lawyer. To get away from the news media and other prying eyes, he goes to stay in a secluded private residence, far from the crowds.
Attorney Yang Shin-ae (played by Kim Yunjin) goes there to discuss the case with him. He thanks her for agreeing to defend him. She makes it clear that her decision has not been made. Perhaps he should tell her his side of the story first. Then she will decide whether or not to take his case.
He admits to having an affair. But will his storytelling include a confession to the crime of murder?
IMDb Rating: 6.5 out of 10 stars. I agree.
(NOTE: Do not be confused as there is also a TV series with the same name.)
♦
Goo Hae Young (played by Kim Hye Yoon) is 19 years old and has been arrested for assaulting three (3) people at a convenience store. She has a history of assault. According to the facts of this specific case, she was defending someone. So the judge considers her criminal history but also takes that into consideration that this time she had noble intentions. She is found guilty and her punishment requires 10 hours of anti-violence training and 40 hours of vocational training.
The court-mandated vocational training is a class in Construction Machinery Operation. If she successfully completes the class she will be certified to operate heavy construction machinery such as a bulldozer. When her teacher realizes she is a female student, he tries to convince her to take a different class. He tells that even if she is certified, it’s not likely anybody would hire a woman for that kind of job. She disregards his advice and learns how to operate a bulldozer.
Meanwhile, tragedy strikes her family. They say her father tried to commit suicide and ended up brain-dead. She does not accept his suicide as the truth and starts digging to find out more. As she suspected, there was more to the situation than the details she had been provided. Once she eventually gathers enough information, she tries to confront WHO drove her father to his end. But when that person disregarded her, she decided to do something more drastic. She drove a bulldozer into the buildings that the person owned and wrecked them!
Certified or not, she was really good at driving a bulldozer.
IMDb Rating: 6.3 out of 10 stars. I agree.
♦
Detective Ma Seok-do (played by Ma Dong-seok) hunts down ruthless criminals. It’s his job; a job that he does well and takes very seriously. Even though he may be in a country where Korean police have no authority, it doesn’t stop him from going after the bad guys and trying to bring them to justice. Catch the criminals and do the paperwork later.
Many hardened criminals in South Korea flee to countries in Southeast Asia, such as Vietnam, to avoid incarceration. But they still continue carrying out their criminal activities. Specifically, they target South Korean tourists on holiday or South Korean businessmen who came to the country in search of a profitable business opportunity. Usually, they kidnap them and demand ransom money. If the victims are killed then … Oops!
Ma Seok-do and a fellow detective are sent to Vietnam to extradite a fugitive criminal who turned himself in to the Vietnamese police. It should be easy since they don’t have to chase after the guy. The assignment is more like a vacation. At least that’s what they think until they get there. Reality check! One thing led to another. Information supplied by the criminal who had turned himself in leads them to a criminal ring engaged in all sorts of criminal mischief. They know their badges don’t give them any authority. But they refuse to look the other way because it involves crimes against South Koreans visiting Vietnam.
What was supposed to be a simple extradition of one criminal turns into a roundup of many criminals of an organized gang.
IMDb Rating: 7.0 out of 10 stars. I agree.
NOTE: This is an action crime film series and there are sequels to this movie: The Roundup: No Way Out (2023); and The Roundup: Punishment (scheduled for release in 2024).
♦
Bang Ui-gang (played by Jang Hyuk) was once an assassin but he retired. He’s a married man content to have settled down with his wife. His wife decides to go on vacation with her best friend and asked her husband if he would be a sweetie pie and look after her best friend’s teenage daughter. Surely a former assassin can handle watching a teenage kid. Right? No sooner than her parent was gone Kim Yoon-ji (played by Lee Seo-young) tries to pull a fast one and break free from Bang Ui-gang. There should be no problem keeping up, especially since he put a tracking device in her wallet. He figured he couldn’t trust her. Kids! They forget that grown-ups also used to be kids and probably tried the same tricks on the adults who watched over them.
The babysitting job suddenly gets very complicated.
If all that action wasn’t enough, when he gets back home he discovers that Kim Yoon-ji, the high school girl he was supposed to looking after has been kidnapped!
What else? Oh yeah! In an effort to try to find the teenager, he has to wrangle with a corrupt detective and a dirty judge. Not just any judge. But the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Korea.
No doubt through all of this he is screaming in his mind: BUT I’M RETIRED!!
The Killer is adapted from a novel written by Bang Jin-ho titled The Kid Deserves to Die.
IMDb Rating: 6.6 out of 10 stars. I agree.
♦
Choi Min-jae (played by Choi Woo-shik) is a police officer asked to go undercover to investigate another police officer, Park Kang-yoon (played by Cho Jin-woong), the head of the Metropolitan Investigation Unit. His record shows that he has been taking down criminals but he receives funds from an unknown to carry out his investigations. Another police officer was sent undercover to investigate Park Kang-yoon and ended up dead.
There is no question that Choi Min-jae is a good cop. But there is a question about Park Kang-yoon. On the surface, he looks like a good cop. But is he really a bad cop? One thing Choi Min-jae’s superiors make plain to him. There is definitely a dead cop! They want him to find out whodunit!
Why was Choi Min-jae asked to go undercover? He became a policeman because his father and grandfather were both policemen. In other words, “lineage”. His superiors believe he has almost been bred for a job like this, i.e. it’s in his blood. Whether that’s true remains to be seen. At any rate, he accepts and starts working alongside Park Kang-yoon as his assistant. That’s dangerously close.
On the other hand, Park Kang-yoon has been successful at dismantling criminal operations.
The Policeman’s Lineage is based on a Japanese novel titled Blood of the Policeman by Joh Sasaki.
IMDb Rating: 6.1 out of 10 stars. I disagree and give it 8 stars.
♦
While it’s true that most of the ratings on IMDb indicate that these movies or TV series were B or B+, K-drama addicts would probably watch them anyway because they are fans of the lead actors and actresses. For example, Ma Dong-seok is like the Korean version of Arnold Schwarzenegger. The Roundup movie has sequels because fans really like to watch him kick butt!! He’s a rough and tough brute, but at the same time, he’s cute and adorable like a big teddy bear you want to hug. (LOL.)
Tubi Signs Deal with CJ ENM Expanding Global Content Offerings – Variety
Tubi Acquires More Than 75 Korean Films With CJ ENM Deal | Next TV
Best Streaming Services for K-Dramas – CNET
♦
Love, Lies | Korean Drama | A Sad, Painful and Tragic Love Story
Swing Kids | Korean Drama | A Movie Gem But Hard to Watch
Copy and paste this URL into your WordPress site to embed
Copy and paste this code into your site to embed
