New Review: The Good, The Bad, The Weird

Eastern Promises

As much as I try to make it to the movies every weekend, sometimes it just never comes to fruition. Sometimes I'm busy with other projects, and I just don't have the necessary time. Most of the time when this happens, it's just because there aren't any new releases that interest me in the slightest. I had little to no interest in seeing The Back-Up Plan or The Losers, and judging by the recent box office reports, it looks like nobody else did either. So with nothing at the multiplex, I tend to turn toward other venues, and one happens to be Comcasts's Video On Demand section. That's where I caught this movie, and it's a wild and crazy ride that is extremely entertaining.

As the title suggests, this is an homage to Sergio Leone's Spaghetti Westerns, only this one has moved from the American outback to Manchuria, a Japanese puppet colony to control Korea during World War II. Like Leone's classic, the main motivation for all the parties involved is searching for treasure. A map is introduced which captures the attention of Yoon Tae-goo (The Weird), a common bandit with masterful skills, Park Chang-yi (The Bad), a sleek and villainous thief searching for the map and a score to settle with Tae-goo, and Park Do-won (The Good), a cowboy type who teams up with Tae-goo for a complicated friendship while trying to collect the bounty on Chang-yi.

I will be honest that I could care less about the plot to this movie; it's as thin as that map itself, making for some very weak glue. But you know what, I don't care because the movie itself doesn't care. The only goal for director and co-writer Kim Ji-woon is to keep up a great energy throughout the film. The ecstatic camera constantly moves and gives the film a playful sense of humor and grandiose. The only complaint I would have in some of the action moments is that, while all of them are very well executed, they tend to go on for too long. An extended chase scene near the end of the film definitely feels the length. However, even then, just when you start to feel it, an element is introduced to get you invested again.

Those action scenes are fun and exciting, but like most revisionist westerns, the strengths are actually in the more quiet moments. These are the moments where the story can have time to breath, the humor feels the most potent, and the actors have a better showcase of their talent. Song Kang-ho plays the Weird, and he's memorable from films like Thirst and The Host. His quick and witty energy is an element to be desired and he's quite fun to watch. The same goes for Byung-hun Lee, who plays The Bad and most recently seen as Storm Shadow in the horrid G.I. Joe. He gets a flashy villain that betrays the time period but still he still pulls it off perfectly as a hammy villain. While I do think the character of The Good is short changed by some lack of character development, Jung Woo-sung plays him in such capable hands that he can still bring out a sense of depth and realism that isn't presented by the script.

This is a movie that aims for the type of audience that devoured Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill films, and if you are one of those people, then you'll gobble this one up too, particularly since there's enough homages to Tarantino's own repertoire of homages. I like to look at this film as for someone who just loves movies: loves the way they can get you excited, to laugh, and to even be taken in by some dramatic moments in the acting. I think this film has it all with great production values to match, and even though it gets a little long in those action sequences, I still loved nearly all of this film. Once again, I thank Comcast for another great movie. Now I need to look onto next week, and hopefully something will bring me back to that dark room.

A-