THE GOOD THE BAD AND THE WEIRD (좋은 놈 나쁜 놈 이상한 놈)

Park Do-won, Yoon Tae-goo, and Park Chang-yi

Kim Ji-woon's The Good the Bad the Weird is an action-packed, star-studded blockbuster that may harbor a deeper meaning than its otherwise linear message. Like any American blockbuster, The Good the Bad the Weird is full of long, illustrious action sequences with a good amount of comic relief. In terms of technical structure, The Good the Bad the Weird is nothing different than most big budget, epic Westerns: there's a buried treasure somewhere in the Manchurian desert and three rival criminals all want it. Throw in some bolt-action rifles and the Japanese Imperial army, and you get a very entertaining, meaty action Asian Western film, with tons of gore to go around. Like Stephen Soderberg's Ocean's Eleven, Kim's Western takes three of the most famous actors in the country and puts them together; thus the film was of considerable acclaim among fans. But what sets The Good the Bad the Weird apart from most blockbusters and East Asian films alike is its inclusion of all three of the major Asian languages. The Good the Bad the Weird is very significant to the history and culture of Korea in that it takes place during the 1930's just before the Second Sino-Japanese War. The Japanese army had invaded Manchuria, an area occupied by both the Korean and the Chinese. Throughout the film, language shifts between Japanese, Mandarin, and the primary Korean. This is notable because the film gathers together actors of Chinese, Korean, and Japanese descent, and together they seem to make fun of more serious conflicts of the past that pitted them against each other. But why this is especially significant has to do with the film's title, The Good the Bad the Weird. Sure, it's easy to determine that Park Chang-yi is the "bad", since he's an assassin, and that Park Do-won is the "good" because he's hunting Chang-yi. And I suppose that Yoon Tae-goo would be the "weird", considering that.... he laughs a couple of times in dire situations. But realistically, all of the three characters are bad, because they all murder and steal. And, in a sense, all are good, in that they turn out to be fighting for innocent enough reasons (wealth, justice, etc.) And what's more, all of them could be considered weird. They all have their specific quirks and strange moments. What's more interesting to think about is whether or not the title acts as an analogy of the races in the film. In the eyes of the Korean filmmakers, obviously Korea is the "good", the malicious Japanese army the "bad", and the tribal/opiate Chinese the "weird". It's interesting to consider that this may be a reflection of the Korean view of its neighbors. Looking back, all of the Chinese characters in The Good the Bad the Weird are either strung out on opium, suffer hilarious deaths, or occupy some form of comic relief. The Koreans are always noble and the Japanese always the pugnacious. It may be a stretch, but it does seem to fit! Otherwise, The Good the Bad the Weird is a fairly straight-forward yet thoroughly entertaining movie, an obvious homage to the Clint Eastwood-starred spaghetti-Western classic.

The last standoff

***1/2 / *****

Directed by: Kim Ji-woon

Country of origin: Korea

Starring: Song Kang-ho, Lee Byung-hun, Jung Woo-sung