Early ticket sales for South Korean action film "The Roundup," starring Ma Dong-seok, were the highest for a local film since director Bong Joon-ho's 2019 Oscar-winning black comedy "Parasite."

According to the Korean Film Council, some 313-thousand tickets were sold in advance as of 8 a.m. Wednesday, the day of the film's release.

This is the highest total among South Korean films after some 505-thousand advance tickets sold on the release day of "Parasite" in May 2019.

A sequel to the 2017 hit "The Outlaws," "The Roundup" is set in Vietnam four years after Detective Ma Seok-do, played by Ma, took out a group of Chinese gangsters in Seoul.