'Holy Night: Demon Hunters' (2025) Movie Review

I say this every time I review one of his movies, but watching Ma Dong-seok (aka Don Lee) clobber dudes is one of modern action cinema’s purest pleasures. What director Lim Dae-hee’s new film, Holy Night: Demon Hunters, proposes is, what if, instead of dudes, there were demons, and Ma punched them in the face, too? That sounds like a match made in heaven. Or hell, as the case may be.

'The Roundup: No Way Out' (2023) Movie Review

By the time you get to the third installment of a franchise, you often know what to expect. Sometimes that can be repetitive and stale, but when it comes to The Roundup: No Way Out, the sequel to 2022’s The Roundup, itself a follow up to 2017’s The Outlaws, the filmmakers know exactly what audiences want—star Ma Dong-seok punching dudes very, very hard and being droll and hilarious as he does—and delivers a substantial amount of that. And it is good.

Fantasia 2022: 'The Roundup' Movie Review

Ma Dong-seok, also known as Don Lee, just wrecking dudes, is a true thing of beauty. That single fact is more than enough reason to watch a movie; I’ve watched movies for far, far less. If that wasn’t enough to get The Roundup to pop on my radar (it certainly was), the fact that director Lee Sang-yong’s film is a follow up to 2017’s The Outlaws, which prominently features Ma running amok through the Seoul underworld. And while this new chapter may not quite live up to its predecessor, it’s still a more than worthy successor. 

Fantasia 2019: 'The Gangster, The Cop, The Devil' Movie Review

This is an updated version of an earlier review.

To lump all South Korean cinema together and paint the industry with a singular, this-is-what-they-do brush is to do it a disservice. It cuts across genre boundaries, topics, and subsets, with standouts in each category along the way. But goddamn, do the South Korean filmmakers do dark, thoughtful crime thrillers really well. Oldboy, I Saw the Devil, The Yellow Sea, the list goes on. The latest addition to this canon is Lee Won-tae’s The Gangster, the Cop, the Devil.

'The Gangster, The Cop, The Devil' (2019) Movie Review

To lump all South Korean cinema together and paint the industry with a singular, this-is-what-they-do brush is to do it a disservice. It cuts across genre boundaries, topics, and subsets, with standouts in each category along the way. But goddamn, do the South Korean filmmakers do dark, thoughtful crime thrillers really well. Oldboy, I Saw the Devil, The Yellow Sea, and many more. The latest addition to this canon is Lee Won-tae’s The Gangster, the Cop, the Devil.

UPDATED: 'The Gangster, The Cop, The Devil' Trailer: Check Out The Cannes-Bound South Korean Thriller

UPDATE: There's another new version of the trailer for The Gangster, The Cop, The Devil. It's slightly longer and still in Korean, but it comes complete with the Cannes logo, so...cool.

Watch The Trailer For 'Champion,' A South Korean Arm Wrestling Drama

Directed by Menahem Golan, half of the team behind the venerable Cannon Films, the 1987, Sylvester Stallone-starring Over the Top combines the high family drama of a child custody battle with…competitive arm wrestling. And it’s glorious. Thanks, Menahem, you glorious madman! But it’s also pretty much the only real movie that speaks to the arm wrestling enthusiast. Until now. South Korea’s Kim Yong-wan is making his directorial debut with Champion, and he’s enlisted Ma Dong-seok to star. Check out the trailer and try to convince me this isn’t going to rule.