Dir: Ji-Woon KimThe Good. The Bad. The Weird. is a Korean remake of Sergio Leone's famous 'The good, the bad and the ugly'. It is set some time in late 1930's Manchuria.
The Bad. The Good.
The Weird (who is introduced as a thief with few scruples) single handedly robs several Japanese dignitaries on a train. In doing so he acquires a mysterious map and thwarts the plans of The Bad (a psycho assassin crime lord) whose own train robbery occurs immediately there after, and who is after said map. Chaos ensues as the Weird makes good his escape and The Good (a stone faced bounty hunter) reveals himself and opens fire on The Bad. They have names of course, but I'm not good at remembering Korean names alas.
The story unfolds as The Weird, and his brother try to figure out what the map is about. They decide it is a treasure map but before they act on it, they get half of Manchuria on their necks as criminal gangs, bandits, The Bad, the Good and half the Japanese army come hunting for them.
Naturally, The Weird takes the map and heads off to find the treasure.
This is a strange film, and I really want to like it but I have to be honest. The camera work, art direction and general style just don't live up to Sergio Leone. The plot is thinner than my wallet and the set designs were too monotonous. At one point in the film The Weird puts on a pair of sun glasses and they looked like he bought them from a cheap contemporary street vendor. There are a lot of details that give the film an over all cheap quality. Unfortunately.
What does work is Song Kang-ho's portrayal of The Weird, and the huge brass balls it took to make this film at all. I have to take my hat off to Ji-Woon Kim for just making this film at all and while its not perfect, nor even close, it is an adventure film set in 1930's Machuria and thats good enough for me.
2 comments:
You spelt the directors name wrong, if you look at the cover picture.
I copied it from IMDb. People seem to have a lot of trouble when writing Korean names in English.
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