The Good, The Bad, and The Weird<\/em><\/a> would turn out to be a poor parody of the classic Sergio Leone western, ‘The Good, the Bad and the Ugly,’ (1966) starring Clint Eastwood. \u00a0I am sure, however, that Kim Jee-woon takes great pleasure in baiting us into a film that rises far beyond our expectations. \u00a0The Good, The Bad, and The Weird is impressive and no less than pure fast paced entertainment from beginning to end.<\/p>\nThe mise en scene setting takes us to a Korea in the early 1900’s, struggling against annexation by Japan and the military presence of the Japanese Army. \u00a0These conditions literally paralleled those existing in the Wild American West in the late 1800’s.<\/p>\n
The plot unfolds with a corrupt politician, who sells to the Japanese, a map many believe might be buried Qing Dynasty treasure, then simultaneously schemes to steal the map back. \u00a0Hence, we meet the Bad, Lee Byeong-hun, who, hired by the politician, plans to get the map back by train robbery.<\/p>\n
The scene shifts to the cinematographic feast enjoyed by Lee Mo-gae, whose wide angle shots graphically capture the unsuspecting train barreling across vast Korean terrain. \u00a0Quick cuts to the inside of the train takes in the colorful pageantry \u00a0of the costumes of the era as the two gun weilding Weird, Song-Khan-ho deftly advances the private cabin of the Japanese banker in possession of the map. \u00a0Just as the Weird perpetuates his robbery, the train screeches to an abrupt halt. Pandemonium and carnage announce the arrival of Lee and his gang. \u00a0Only then does the Weird realize the significance of the map and that he has inadvertently beat others to it.<\/p>\n
The Good, Jung-Woo sung, a professional bounty hunter, cares nothing about the McGruffinal map. \u00a0He wants Lee to advance his career. \u00a0Through the Good’s intrusive crossfire, the Weird escapes with the map.<\/p>\n
This film is violent merriment at its best. We even encounter a roving band of desperados that pursue the Weird for the map. \u00a0Indeed, there is a long spectacular scene where Weird, on motorcycle, is pursued by Lee and gang on horseback, pursued by the horse backed desperados, pursued by the Japanese Army equipped with trucks and heavy artillery which gets foiled by the marksmanship of the Good. \u00a0Through an interpretive lens, it is man, animal and machine vying for a place in Korea’s future.<\/p>\n
Kudos to Kim Jee-woon for recognizing a Korean western had artistic viability and to the distributor that picks this film up for the American market.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Reviewed by Darryl Walden. \u00a0Viewed at the Arclight Theater, AFI Film Festival. I had this preconceived notion that The Good, The Bad, and The Weird would turn out to be a poor parody of the classic Sergio Leone western, ‘The Good, the Bad and the Ugly,’ (1966) starring Clint Eastwood. \u00a0I am sure, however, that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":193,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1161","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-afi-filmfest-2008","category-films"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1161","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/193"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1161"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1161\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1161"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1161"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1161"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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