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Studio: IFC FilmsYear: 2008
Cast: Song Kang-ho, Jung Woo-sung, Lee Byung-hun, Ryu Seung-soog
Director: Kim Jee-woon
Release Date: August 17, 2010
Rating: R for nonstop violence and some drug use
Run Time: 02h:09m:57s
Genre(s): western, action, comedy Man-gil: "It's a treasure map!"
Yoon tae-goo: "A treasure map?" - (Ryu Seung-soo, Song Kang-ho)
Kim Jee-woon nails the whole American/spaghetti western mythos, only here set in the rough and tumble gun-toting world of 1930's Manchuria. Crammed with nonstop action and terrific comedy, this is the kind of joyous absurdity of well-choreographed excess that makes me absolutely love movies. One of the most over-the-top cool titles of 2010. Bar none.
Movie Grade: A
DVD Grade: A
South Korean writer/director Kim Jee-woon (A Tale of Two Sisters, A Bittersweet Life) shifts genre gears once again, and here channels bits of Sergio Leone, Quentin Tarantino and the spectre of the great American Western.
It's as if it all of these elements, plus a few more, were thrown in a blender, with Jee-woon seemingly convinced that he needs to up the ante progressively in every action sequence, which in this film is practically every scene. The end product is a glossy, violent cartoon of a movie, a barrage of colorful characters, wild gunfights and chase scenes, each more chaotically wonderful than the previous one.
Set in a tumultuous 1930s Manchuria, the story centers on down-and-out thief Yoon tae-goo (The Host's Song Kang-ho), the film's titular "weird", who inadvertently steals a highly coveted treasure map during the raucous opening train heist sequence. For the "bad" there's the deadly assassin Park Chang-yi (Lee Byung-hun), who was planning on swiping the map himself, while the "good" is lone wolf bounty hunter Park Do-won (Jung Woo-sung), out to stop the bad guy and get the map for himself. But that won't be so easy, because hot on their collective trails are a few assorted cutthroat gangs, as well as the Japanese army.
Needless to say, excessive chaos and mayhem ensue.
There's great silliness and macho posturing on display, and the fact that the film's heavy looks and dresses like a modern-day rock star and the hero is decked out like an American cowboy is unimportant. It is this broad clash of visual styles that allows Kim Jee-woon to create a uniquely gritty, dusty graphic novel-style Manchuria, rendering it into a somewhat familiar-yet-wretched hive of scum and villainy, a swaggering outpost of big guns and itchy trigger fingers.
What matters is the three leads play their parts as if this were all very normal, and the mixture of humor and violence mesh together with a refreshing hellzapopping cinematic approach to filmmaking. There's barely a spot to catch one's breath here, and the action sequences and stuntwork are consistently inventive and impressive.
For a film that is essentially one long chase scene, Kim Jee-woon makes the 130 minutes fly by, continually compounding the action and pushing the limits as the story progresses. And don't bail once the credits begin, because there's a satisfying little coda in there, as well. If you swooned over the alt-frontier world of Takashi Miike's Sukiyaki Western Django, then The Good The Bad The Weird is your kind of movie.
Highly recommended.
IMAGE/AUDIO
I can't imagine the 1080i (say what?) BD release of The Good The Bad The Weird looking substantially better than this 2.35 anamorphic widescreen SD offering, which could easily be a reference quality title for showing off your system. Simply gorgeous on all counts, with excellent detail (especially on closeups) and bright, smear-free colors throughout.
The real winner, however, is the Dolby Digital 5.1 surround mix, presented in a mixed-bag combination of Korean, Mandarin, Japanese and Chinese, with optional subtitles available in English, English SDH or Spanish. To call this an aggressive presentation would be a huge understatement, as the use of rear channels and deep bass is used almost constantly for a dramatic depth of field for the constant shootouts, explosions and fight scenes. Damn, this is one big, ballsy mix,
EXTRAS
The supplements are a bit frothy and unguided, but do showcase plenty of production footage, with much of the content culled from the Korean DVD release.
Behind The Scenes (15m:03s) and Cannes Highlight Reel (03m:03s) are the polar extremes, with one a series of narration-free action scene setups while the other is the cast and director soaking up the tuxedo nightlife in Cannes. A pair of "making of" segments barely clock in at five minutes total, and serve more as a promotional tease for the film than anything else. Most of the substance comes from a quartet of short interviews—Song Kang-ho (02m:43s), Lee Byung-hun (02m:59s), Jung Woo-sung (02m:47s), Kim Jee-woon (03m:15s)—which are lightweight but certainly watchable. A theatrical trailer is also included, as well as forced previews for a handful of other IFC titles.
Posted by: Rich Rosell - August 29, 2010, 1:29 pm - DVD ReviewKeywords: action, western, comedy, kim jee-woon
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