The Good, The Bad, The Weird (Kim Jee-woon, 2008): South Korean

Reviewed by Thao Huynh. Viewed at the AFI Film Festival, ArcLight Hollywood.

If I were the jury for film in AFI Fest, I would give The Good, The Bad and The weird an award of the most entertaining movie among these films which were shown in AFI Fest. Honestly, there was some parts I noticed that my good friend who does not smile or laugh that much, he was laughing so hard and did have a good time.

This is not the first time Kim Jee-Won has a big success like this. He has tried to make different genres of movie. His works are The Foul King, A Tale of Two Sisters, A Bittersweet Life and this movie The Good, The Bad and The Weird.

The story started in 1930’s when Korea was lost. On the train, the weird (Song Khang-Ho, a two fisted gun-sligging thief) eventually found a map to the treasure. Later, the weird got along with the good (Jung Woo-sung, a sharp shooting bounty hunter in a duster) in order to find where the treasure is. However, they aare not the only one who chased after the treasure. There was the bad (Lee Buyng-hun, a wickedly handsome knife-throwing gang leader.) There are the Chinese army and Japan Independence group. They all have one thing in common is that trying to have the map.

Moreover, three main characters’ acting really stands out. Everyone has their own style and can not be misunderstood to each other. I do admire the director plus screen writer Kim Jee-woon took a risk to remake one of the popular and classic movie of all times.

The interesting thing in this movie is that even though people are able to predict the ending for this movie because the movie is a remake of the famous Italian western movie Buono, Il Brutto, il cattivo, Il a.k.a The Good, The Bad and The Ugly (1966, directed by Sergio Leone); this movie somehow hook the audience from the beginning to the end.

Moreover, it obviously shows the Korean style that we can not be confused with any other movie. It is so cool to watch a Korean movie in style of Western cowboy, isn’t it?

The costumes in this film are also the target to notice. All the people in the movie are wearing as cowboys while the background is very Asian. And even though the story is in a setting of Japan 1930’s, the costumes still have quite a bit of modern, which is cool.

Sometimes I think it doesn’t need to take a very bizarre and freaky story line to have a good movie. Good acting, a lot of actions and funny are usually what it takes to be a good movie. Well, at least to me, it could be a quite good entertainment for a day. Isn’t a film supposed to entertain people?

If you love the old version The Good, The Bad and The Ugly, you are recommended to watch this new Korean version because this film combined everything – action, adventure, drama, comedy.