THE GOOD, THE BAD, THE WEIRD
Directed by Kim Jee-woon
Produced by Choi Jae-Won & Kim
Written by Kim & Kim Min-suk
Released by IFC Films
Korean with English subtitles
South Korea. 95 min. Not Rated
With Song Kang-ho, Lee Byung-hun & Jung Woo-sung 
 

A twist on Sergio Leone’s 1966 masterpiece, The Good, the Bad, the Ugly, the title of The Good, the Bad, the Weird implies there’s something extra here. But as it turns out, this is really just another action western, albeit out of South Korea. Nothing too “weird” enough about it (the weird character isn’t even that strange, more just scum along the lines of his inspiration, Tuco in Ugly). Is this a bad thing? Not at all. The movie’s respectable, sometimes even really thrilling, and alive. It could be described as a “noodle western,” set in 1930’s Manchuria with basically the same plot as Leone’s film—three strangers seek an undetermined amount of fortune, except this time using a treasure map.

While the movie falls short of being really great and original, it’s a lot of fun. The opening train sequence has a lot of verve and some humor (more people in the screening were laughing out loud than I was, though it was always amusing), and there’s one particular chase sequence out in the desert when “the weird”  (a very good Song Kang-ho) drives his cart, pursued by the Japanese army and tons of bandits, all firing guns, put to the “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood” cover featured in Kill Bill Vol. 1. This is, at the least, a real breathtaker of a sequence, where Kim just says “f*** it” and goes all out, propelling the action forward and trampling anyone in the way.

The film also boasts a few other goodies. One of these is the performance of “the bad” by Lee Byung-hun, who has a very crazed look in his eyes every other moment. He’s constantly watchable whenever he’s on screen. And, as mentioned, the actor Song Kang-ho (who we previously saw as the priest in Park Chan-wook’s Thirst) is tough as nails and goofy as hell. The other main actor, Jung Woo-sung as “the good,” is more the straight man, less a bad-ass than Clint Eastwood, but more subtle and with a more obscure and interesting backstory that is only revealed in snippets. While director Kim Jee-woon definitely verges from the usual Mexican stand-off just a bit in the climax, there’s at least a sense of real love for his source material, and action westerns in general.

If only it could be a little more, well, weird. It’s certainly not, for example, Takashi Miike’s Sukiyaki Western Django. Yet, if you’re hankering for some bloody western fun and shameless action and characterizations (and a little jazz to boot), it gets good marks on all counts. Jack Gattanella
April 23, 2010