R W
Posts: 272
Joined: 23/6/2006
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Director: Kim Ji-woon
Screenwriters: Kim Ji-woon, Kim Min-suk
Starring: Song Kang-ho, Lee Byung-hun, Jung Woo-sung
Synopsis
In 1930s Manchuria, three Korean outlaws try to acquire a map that will lead them to a treasure buried somewhere in the desert. As the race is on, they initially become targets by both the Japanese Army and Manchurian bandits.
Review
Through his body of work, South Korean director Kim Ji-woon has tackled a wide range of film genres, mostly horror and comedy. Inspired by Sergio Leone’s masterpiece The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, Ji-woon takes on the Western genre with this familiar, yet original adventure that could turn the Korean filmmaker into the new Spielberg.
With a title like The Good, the Bad, the Weird, you will know that this is clearly a homage to the third installment of Leone’s Dollars Trilogy, as the film has a similar narrative structure to the spaghetti western with scenes such as a torture sequence, an epic battle and of course, an climatic standoff.
While it is thought-provoking, in which the story discusses how this treasure will help the wealth of various countries, it is a film you can’t really be serious about. Though the characterizations of our three protagonists mostly reflect on the performances of Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef and Eli Wallach, the script manages to bring enough originality to make the characters differ, particularly when they approach their fates.
To tell you the truth, it is all boys, noise and toys. While the Leone influence is written all over the film, Ji-woon’s direction is very reflective to the style of Spielberg, in which he has constructed some of the most inventive action sequences since Raiders of the Lost Ark. If anyone felt Kingdom of the Crystal Skull was disappointing, this is to make it up.
While he does not provide the ugly, The Host’s Song Kang-ho really brings in the weirdness as he plays a courageous thief whose scene-stealing antics makes him stepping into Eli Wallach’s boots. Lee Byung-hun, who we will be seeing in the upcoming G.I. Joe film, plays the typical cool, yet violent outlaw whose sick views on life, really gives the film a dark nature. As for the Good, while Jung Woo-sung has the physical heroism to be the Korean Harrison Ford, his reason for searching the treasure is quite unclear.
There is a scene in the end that does hint the idea of a sequel, but it felt more like an unnecessary add-on, because of what happens to the characters and the discovery of the treasure, they should have book ended it right there.
Verdict
In the end, it is an intelligent, Spielberg-esque Korean homage to the work of the master of the spaghetti western.
< Message edited by R W -- 7/2/2009 7:42:37 PM >
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