Movie Details
| Title: | The Good, The Bad, The Weird | |
| Director: | Jee-woon Kim | |
| Year: | 2008 | |
| Genre: | Western | |
| Times Seen: | 1 | |
| Last Seen: | 07.09.12 |
Other Movies Seen By This Director (0)
| Date Viewed | Venue | Note |
| 07.09.12 | Netflix | I avoided this at FantasticFest due to my aversion to "Japanese Weird" movies; a favorite of the festival and something i find to be cheaply-produced and arbitrarily insane. Of course, since then I've come to realize several things about this movie, such as it's Korean rather than Japanese, not really all that weird, and directed by the guy who followed this up with I Saw the Devil which I liked quite a lot. Shame on me I guess. Well, I finally saw it. I really don't want this to sound like I think all Korean people look alike, but I think at least one of the three main stars of this movie have been in every Koream movie that I've seen made in the last ten years (which is pretty much all of them... I haven't seen that many Korean movies). I guess they both like working with Chan-wook Park (or is it Park Chan-wook? I never know. I think Chan-wook Park rolls off my western round-eye tongue better so that's what I'm saying). Anyway... I very much liked the action sequences in this movie. The beginning, the various shoot-outs, and the massive desert chase toward the end are all excellent and very well shot. Where it fell flat to me - and one of the reasons why I didn't catch it at the fest - is when it steers too close to its source material. It's... just not Leone. The music isn't Morricone. And that one guy sure as shit isn't Clint Eastwood. I liked the other two and think they did a good job but as soon as Blondie catches Tuco and forms an uneasy partnership with him I felt like I'd just rather be watching The Good, The Bad and The Ugly. The showdown at the end is like an odd knock-off of the original where everybody just gets hit in their arms over and over. It just doesn't compare to the original in my opinion. I wish it was a looser re-telling or something like that. The scenes that weren't direct correlations were very nice. At least I've seen it now. I'm not too bummed about missing it theatrically. |
