Dir. Kim Ji-woon, South Korea, 2008, 120 mins, subtitles
Cast: Song Kang-ho, Lee Byung-hun, Jung Woo-sung
Review by Richard Badley
Thought the Western was dead and buried? South Korea's Kim Ji-woon doesn't think so and is out to resuscitate the genre with a hefty dose of adrenaline in this big budget, big cast version of Sergio Leone's classic The Good, the Bad and the Ugly . Playing like a cross between It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World and just about every spaghetti Western you've heard of, it's a film packed with ideas and flourishes, but bloated by its sheer scale.
Kim is clearly going for more blazing than saddles. While 1930's Manchuria – a frontier land populated by outcasts from Japanese controlled Korea – stands-in for the American West and the law of the gun governs the chaos, there is little in common with Leone's more measured approach. There's simply no room for subtlety here. From his breakneck opening train robbery, which sees The Weird (Song Kang-ho) take possession of a Russian treasure map, Kim rarely pauses for breath to be worried about building any sense of tension.
The map itself is the usual McGuffin to get characters interacting – or in this case shooting at each other – so The Weird is the target of various interested parties: a Genghis Khan-type rabble, Korean landowners, the Japanese army, a bandit leader – The Bad (Lee Byung-hun) – and, of course, token bounty hunter The Good (Jung Woo-sung). It's a film not short on a few villains so there are the inevitable crosses and double-crosses but the plot is background noise to Kim's frequent set-pieces that are brash, loud and hugely entertaining. The use of good ol' fashioned stunt work recalls the adventurous heyday of Indiana Jones, especially during the madcap chase at the end where it's every man for himself in a whirling sandstorm of vehicles and explosions.
This being Korean cinema the focus is always on the weird and wonderful, The Weird especially. Played by Song Kang-ho – a huge star after his turn as the immature father in the country's blockbuster The Host – The Weird is the most developed and interesting character. Selfish, wily and funny (see how he uses a diving helmet for maximum protection), he's the backbone of the movie while The Good and The Bad are reduced to posing stereotypes. With the same tailor as Desperado , The Bad struts around looking to be the most famous, well, bad person. The Good goes for the Eastwood approach, a man of few words, but he hasn't got the presence to match and is lost in a sea of visual stimulus.
The sheer amount of colour and variety is what's startling. Kim makes the most of the various cultures on offer and the film is stunning to look at. Going from deep reds to startling white snowfall, The Weird zips around the ever-changing landscape on his trusty scooter to join the various plot points like some cross-country dot-to-dot. But this shrinks the story's world at the expense of the sheer wonder of the panoramas and lost is the helpless isolation of the desert.
However, this is an action film, a crazy action film, and Kim juggles the free-wheeling elements expertly but then introduces an unnecessarily violent sub-plot involving the notorious 'Finger Chopper'. Just when you thought it was a film the whole family could 'yeehaw!' at... out come knives and torture. So Kim unashamedly chucks what he can at the screen to see what sticks, long johns and all, but it's still a film you can easily walk away from whoppin' like Yosemite Sam on acid. While Hollywood Westerns might have gotten caught up in the darker side of the lust for gold, Kim knows there's still fun to be had in them hills.
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