Sergio Leone meets The Wacky Races in Kim Jee-woon’s Asian Western – it’s a real blast!…
Set in 1930 Japanese-occupied Manchuria, we find our Good, Bad and Weird in three displaced Koreans: Tae-goo (The Weird, played with superb comic timing by Song Kang-ho, Memories Of Murder, Sympathy For Mr Vengeance), the scooter-bound train robber who little knows what he’s letting himself in for when he comes into possession of a treasure map; Chang-yi (The Bad, played by Lee Byung-hun, A Bittersweet Life, Three Extremes: Cut), a merciless hired killer and his gang, beaten to the punch for reclaiming the map and with his own reasons for catching up with Tae-oo; and his nemesis Do-Weon (The Good, played by Jung Woo-sung, Musa The Warrior, Beat), a bounty hunter who wants to add Chang-yi and Tae-goo for the money they’re worth.
Add to that the ramshackle ghost town gang, and the Manchurian/Japanese forces themselves, all with a vested interest in the map, and the chase is on to claim it and the treasure it conceal it. And Tae-goo’s right out the front…
Never one to get pigeonholed under any genre, writer/director Kim Jee-Woon follows psycho horror A Tale Of Two Sisters (with it’s upcoming Hollywood makeover The Uninvited) and film noir A Bittersweet Life with a very entertaining western. Shooting action with a good eye for using widescreen to it’s full potential – rather like those old Italian directors did themselves – following characters through complicated tracking shots while everything, often literally, explodes around them. It’s already been stated that Jee-woon put his cast through the steps, making them perform much of their own stunts. There’s a ‘lo-fi’ nature to the stunts that reminds you of the excitement you used have watching the original Indiana Jones movies.
Indeed, while America seems to be returning to the Western genre with a heightened reality – all serious issues, grimy clothing and clumsy action – the rest of the world seems intent to have a lot more fun. Japan’s Takeshi Miike (who remade Jee-woon’s debut The Quiet Family as The Happiness of the Katakuris) recently released his first English language movie (soon to be seen in the UK) Sukiyaki Western Django with Quentin Tarantino. Meanwhile India’s Shashank Ghosh has taken an equally irreverent look at the genre with his Tamil comedy Quick Gun Murugan.
Jee-woon delights in enjoying the full potential of the genre, paying full homage to Spaghetti Westerns with three-way duels and opium dens (not to mention plenty of references to Asian films like King Hu’s Dragon Inn). The finale wonderfully encapsulates the scale of Leone’s The Good, The Bad And The Ugly with all the separate groups in pursuit of Tae-goo, including the Manchurian/Japanese army, complete with a cavalry, trucks and cannons like something out of The Wacky Races (who’s Muttley?). Utterly ridiculous, of course, but there’s nothing to take too seriously in Jee-woon’s latest film. It’s come under criticism for it’s lack of real plot, but that’s not the point. This is pure entertainment, beautifully made. (And let’s not forget that Leone himself had quite a sense of humour and self-reverence.)
Reunited with Jee-woon for the first time since The Foul King, Song Kang-ho once again employs his comedic talents so rarely seen elsewhere. His Keaton-esqe physicality and natural comedy timing combine with the ability to give his character real pathos. (Indeed, you wish he showed this side off more often.)
Byung-hun is perfect playing a much darker role than we’re used to, a heartless killer who really is only interested in being ‘the best’ –hardly the more sympathetic characters we’re used to from A Bittersweet Life and Park Chan-wook’s segment from Three Extremes. Similarly, Jung Woo-sung is impressive as the ‘straight man’, making you realise we really don’t see enough of him in Korean movies.
This may be a case of switching you brain off to enjoy the action, but it’s rare that such a film gets made so well! It’s easy to see why this film has been such a hit in Korea. So sit back, enjoy – this will, literally, blow you away!
The Good, The Bad, The Weird was shown as part of this years London Film Festival, and can be seen at The London Korean Film Festival 08 – it will be released in UK cinemas soon by Icon Films. We’ll be exclusively talking to director Kim Jee-woon and his star Lee Byung-hun soon…
