Review of The Good, the Bad, the Weird

The movie takes place in the 1930's, and invovles three archetypes of which the Good (Jung Woo-Sung) and the Bad (Lee Byung-hun) spend most of the movie chasing the Weird (Song Kang-ho) and the map to a Qing Dynasty treasure in his possession around Japanese occupied Manchuria. It's a kinetic movie punctuated with moments of stillness that are shattered by violence. Song Kang-ho as Tae-goo (the Weird) is the heart of the movie; he's a man looking to put his past behind him, though robbing trains does seem an odd way to go about it. Jung Woo-Sung as Do-won (the Good) is possibly too stoic as the unflappable bad-ass. The guy's almost a Terminator. Finally, Lee Byung-hun as Chang-yi (the Bad) is just not a nice person, though anyone that likes 30's comedies (something with William Demarest) can't be all bad. The twenty minutes or so of the movie, before the final showdown between our characters, is an incredible chase scene involving five different parties, with horses and cars and motorcycles that has been compared, not unfairly, to THE ROAD WARRIOR. If you like Westerns and are willing to stretch your sensibilities, it's worth a gander.

8/10