Henry Saw: The Good The Bad The Weird

A very brief review of a crazy and fun Korean action film


The Good The Bad The Weird is a hard film to describe. The plot is fairly easy to summarize...3 different types of bandits chase one another for possession of a treasure map during the 1940s in Manchuria. That seems like a straight forward plot...but this is not a straight forward movie. The Good The Bad The Weird is a pastiche of Spaghetti Westerns, John Woo action films, Indiana Jones pictures, and Quintin Tarantino. Add in the usual strangeness of Korean films and it makes for a unique but fun experience.

The plot is quite inconsequential to this film. This movie is all about the set pieces and and the main three characters. This is the best action movie I've seen from Korea. In recent years Korea has been the origin of a lot of great films but most of them are, despite all having a quirky quality, fairly grim. The Good The Bad The Weird is an exuberant film. It's all about having fun.



The director Ji-Woon Kim, who previously made A Tale of Two Sisters and A Bittersweet Life (which was featured in a Scene of the Day post a few years ago), fills the film with original shots and action sequences. He establishes, and then impressively keeps, a very delicate and manic tone. The final action sequence, a mix of the tank sequence in The Last Crusade and The Road Warrior, is a spectacular set piece (even if the music rips off Kill Bill Vol. 1).

The Good The Bad The Weird is far from a flawless film. It's far too long. It's around 130 minutes and there are stretches where nothing exciting happens. This is a premise which demands a 90-100 minute running time and Ji-Woon Kim puts way too many superfluous scenes into the movie. For a such a fun movie...there are a lot of boring parts. Also, for good or bad, we never care about any of the characters. We might like The Weird (Kang-ho Song - who is in almost every Korean movie I've ever seen) but we don't really care about anyone. Finally, the ending...well its just so Korean. I didn't think the movie needed to end the way it did.

A fun film, an impressive action movie, but a little too long for my tastes. Still worth a watch...just don't be afraid to take a bathroom break.

Grade: B

Best Scene: That big final action/chase scene