The Good, The Bad, and the Weird

Last week Andrea found out that the CGV in Yongsan shows Korean movies with English subtitles! It would have been nice to have known this eleven months ago, but hey... better late than never! On Sunday we went to go see the latest Korean blockbuster, "The Good, the Bad, and the Weird." (called noomnoomnoom by Koreans) Dubbed The Kimchi Western by a Canadian film festival, it's the story of three bandits in 1930s Manchuria. They are all after a secret map supposed to lead to treasure from the Qing dynasty. It stars Jung Woo Sung, Lee Byung Hun, and Song Kan Ho, three of Korea's most popular actors. Song Kang Ho is to Korean cinema as Morgan Freeman or Samuel L. Jackson is to Hollywood -- he just seems to be in every single movie, ever! He he played the father in The Host, and Tae Goo, or the weird, in The Good The Bad The Weird. He was my favorite part of the film I think.

Overall, I liked the movie. It really is a Korean take on the old fashioned Spaghetti Western movie, albeit with slightly more cinematic credibility. The characters had clear, strong relationships with each other - aided by great performances given by the leads. Their play of each other was both comical and terrifying at times. The action scenes, while sometimes quite far fetched, were awesome and often gruesome. It couldn't be a good western without a few good old fashioned gun fights, could it? And of course a hijacked train robbery - which opens the film - in which all three bandits, Tae Goo, Do Won and Chang Yi are involved. The Japanese official that is carrying the treasure map (which the Japanese army is after so that they can continue to fund the war) is on the train. Tae Goo (the weird) successfully steals the map, but without realizing its value. Chang Yi (the bad) is after the map as a hired thief and assassin with the bloodiest reputation in Manchuria. And Do Won (the good) is after Chang Yi - because he's bad - and the map, because he's still an outlaw after all and needs money as much as the next exiled Korean. After Tae Goo's brother explains what the map is, all three embark on a goose chase to the "buried treasure."

A few other characters are thrown in to keep things complicated, and for sheer comic effect (the granny is the best one in the whole movie!), including a rogue camp of Manchurian warriors (or something - I couldn't tell...) and the Japanese army (who were continually foiled by one of the three leads, leaving them in the dust cursing -- it kind of reminded me of a sort of Indiana Jones/Nazis thing).

Not gonna lie, it wasn't the best movie ever. But I enjoyed it. And it was so great to finally see a Korean movie in theaters! I imagine if we'd known about it sooner, we might have learned a lot more Korean... eh, c'est la vie I suppose.