The Good the Bad and the Weird (2008) Review
May 14th 2011 13:14
I have the same relationship with Korean Film that I do with the Cleveland Browns. I want to love the Browns, Josh Cribs is fun to watch, and almost every season seems promising, but they always disappoint. In the same way, Korean cinema always looks pretty awesome, the trailers show beautiful cinematography, and intriguing stories, but once I see the film, they usually seems overlong, dry and boring. Sure their beautifully shot, and
Korean actors are some of the best in the world, but the movies are more dramas than they are action films and lack the flash and spectacle of the movies from Thailand, Hong Kong or the States. While movies like “City of Violence” came close, it always seems Korean films are just to culturally different, and appeal to too specific an audience to really give me the thrill other movies do. But damn it, I WANT to love Korean films, they always look so cool, but I never had a “wow” experience with a Korean Movie. . . . until Now. Honk Kong has “Legend of Drunken Master” America had “Kill Bill” Chile has “Kiltro” and now, Korea has “The Good the Bad and the Weird”.
Director Jae Woo Kim, like many Korean directors is known for his Crime Dramas and sappy love stories, but still considered one of the best in the world, a director I've always thought promising. The film takes place in 1930's Manchuria, an area that, at the time was very similar to the old west. Firstly, the area was vitally lawless, thanks to territorial disputes between the Japanese and Chinese, and it was the point of immigration for Koreans, Russians and some Japanese making it a very culturally neutral area, much like 1870's Texas. The story of the film focuses on a trio of misfits, a Thief, a Gangster, and a Bounty Hunter, thrown into a three-way battle for a mysterious Chinese map the leads to a treasure cryptically marked as “Great amounts, buried below” the story is thin as toilet paper, the exact opposite of most Korean films. Most Koreans movies are a deep story occasionally interrupted by action, this movie is about deep action occasionally interrupted by a story.
That's not the say the story is BAD, it's a good vehicle for the show stopping action sequences. “The Good the Bad and the Weird” is all about the wacky, off the wall shootouts. The action sequences come one after the other, like a one-two punch, and the movie's wild west gunfights are as fun as they are amazing. It goes from being like a Sergio Leoni sequence to a Buster Keaton sequence, to nothing less than a live-action Anime that hardly ever pauses to let you catch your breath. Unlike most Asian films, there really no martial arts tied up in the action, but it does do gunfights like I've never seen them done before [ Click here to read more ]
Ignore those Sundance style Palm Leaves, Rest assured this isn't a crappy Independent film.
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