Ma Dong-seok’s popular Roundup series has a rather convoluted history in terms of its titling. The first film was screened under the literal translated title “Crime City” before being retitled with the ironic “The Outlaws” while all subsequent instalments in the series have adopted the title of the first sequel. Nevertheless, this Japanese spin-off set in 2015 which is two years before the first film’s release, comes with the subtitle “Crime City” and though a Korean co-production does not actually feature Ma Dong-seok but rather attempts to tell a similar story set in the world of Kabukicho.
Which is to say that it takes its equally from delinquent high school manga such as Be Bop High School which is name checked within the film rather than the maverick cop hamstrung by bureaucracy trope that lies at the centre of the Korean series. Though The Roundup may itself have become increasingly less gritty as the series continues to expand, it largely remains grounded within a more concrete reality which is not really something you can say about Tokyo Burst: Crime City even if does hint at the ways in which the crackdown on yakuza has accidentally led other kinds of organised crime groups flourishing.
In this case, that would the incongruity of a crime syndicate led by a greedy host who heads the club Dreaming and presses those who work for him into petty crime if they can’t make their onerous quotas. In general, the stereotypical image of a “host” who earns money by drinking with women in dedicated bars, is of someone slightly effeminate and sensitive. Their livelihood depends on at least appearing non-threatening while providing the illusion of unconditional love and acceptance to their customers while also perhaps coming across as young, vulnerable, and in need of looking after. Though legislation has now been brought in to help stop hosts exploiting women financially until the point that they force them into sex work, the kind of masculinity they present is gentle and non-violent, which makes them a surprising presence in the ruthless world of organised crime.
Yet as is explained to Korean detective Si-won the major difference between the two nations is the extent to which police build relationships with underworld figures in order manage rather than eradicate crime in order to prevent large-scale violence breaking out, though Ma had also been doing something similar in the first Roundup film. The political corruption angle so common in Korean films in which the sons of chaebol families are effectively above the law plays a less well in the Japanese setting while a subplot about a land rights for casino construction, and upcoming election, the thuggishness of the Deputy Prime Minister’s son, and their collaboration with organised crime facilitated by the familiar face of Ma’s sometime sidekick Jang Yi-soo, seems underdeveloped and impossible to take seriously given the film’s cartoonish tone.
Nevertheless, The Roundup’s uncomfortable tendency to make light of police brutality is fully carried over as violent cop Shiro actively covers up security cameras to interrogate suspects, while the police are also guilty of making use of connections to speed up or frustrate justice. They are otherwise a comically bumbling bunch as is yakuza boss hold-out Iwaki frustrated at the loss of his turf to the host club upstarts. Shiro stands somewhere in the middle as a bruiser cop with a strong sense of justice but perhaps not so much ethics. Nevertheless, he eventually bonds with his new Korean partner through singing Linda, Linda at karaoke while becoming invested in his quest to catch those responsible for his late partner’s murder before they return to the safety of Korea where they are otherwise above the law. Despite the overarching silliness, there is an endearing sense of lived-in community in the Kabuchiko environment of which Shiro is at the very centre and even if the film refuses to take anything else to seriously, it does at least commit to the ferocity and carnage of its intermittent action scenes.
Tokyo Burst: Crime City screened as part of this year’s Fantasia International Film Festival.
Trailer (no subtitles)
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Windows on Worlds 