Review: The Good The Bad The Weird

Dir. Jee-woon Kim (2008)

Despite being inspired by The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly; The Good, The Bad, The Weird is a truly unusual movie. A South Korean Spaghetti Western set in a fantasy-Manchuria, The Good, The Bad, The Weird, lives up to all three portions of its name.

All three central characters are decently well developed, well acted, and a lot of fun to watch interact. The idea of their paths crossing brings the proceedings a lot of tension and energy, and all three characters are so different that they keep the movie from falling too deeply into any genre conventions or stereotypes. Some delightful surprises aside, this isn’t a narrative that is going to thrill you through the depth of its characters or deep emotional arcs. The Good, The Bad, The Weird knows it’s an action movie, and it commits fully to that idea.

The action scenes are inventive and often hilarious, each one distinct and offering something I had never seen before. For example: ever seen a cowboy swinging rope to rope like a western spider-man through a shantytown while firing a rifle with deadly precision? I sure hadn’t. Now I have.

Given the audacious visual style and larger than life characters, it’ll be easy for many viewers to forgive the movie when it wants to completely ignore physics and just have fun. It should be said however, that in the last act this suspension of disbelief gets pretty stretched.  Another noteworthy point regarding the action, there are harsh shifts in the tone of violence in this film. It can swing from watching-through-your-fingers level of stomach churn (if you’ve seen this one, you know what scenes I’m talking about) to more standard superhero-level pseudo-violence. If you’re going into this expecting it to be a standard western in this regard, you might be thrown for a bit of a loop. Making this juxtaposition even more stark is just how funny some of the characters can be. Not all the humor survives translation, but what does is usually pretty clever stuff. The film moves along at a brisk pace, bouncing from adventure to adventure but it starts to lose its focus a bit and slowly drag to a crawl near the end, which may test the patience of some viewers.

The cinematography is gorgeous, with rich color tones and great compositions throughout. The camera knows when to deliver an epic sweep and when to remain motionless, it’s a good mix which serves the action-heavy story well. Musically, the soundtrack is a patchwork quilt of influences and serves to both elevate the imagery as well as drive the emotional veins forward without ever devolving into pure cheese. There are a ton of fantastic practical effects, a bit too many, as the film had to be edited for its international release to remove some animal abuse. It also has some, for 2008, really great digital work as well.

There are several endings to the movie, but both have a similar feeling to the end. They are different enough though, to justify digging up the other ending if you are unsatisfied with the one you saw. To my knowledge they released one ending internationally (which was more in line with the director’s original vision) and one ending to South Korea specifically.

In terms of content some may find objectionable, other than the aforementioned bits of ultra-violence, The Good The Bad The Weird has an off color attempt at a joke involving sexual assault, children participating in particularly gruesome (annnnnnd hilarious) violence, and some minor drug use. Given the R rating though, none of the content really pushes the boundaries of the rating and is clearly intended for an adult audience.

Should you see The Good, The Bad, The Weird?

If you’re looking for a roller-coaster of an adventure that is unique, silly, violent, and beautiful, then this off kilter western might just be the perfect blend of good, bad, and weird for you! If the deserved R rating, tonal fluctuations, emphasis on action over character, and general yet joyful disregard of realism adds up to more bad and weird than good for you; I recommend you find another train to board.

-Josh Evans