Ostenibly an homage to Sergio Leone's cinematic masterpiece, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, TGTBATW is a Korean, um, western set in Manchuria during the years of Japanese imperialism and living dangerously. And while it's unfair to compare the flick to Leone's classic, I'm going to anyway. Because I'm an asshole.
TGTBATW's major flaw is that it's hard (out here for a pimp) to make a film as loved as Leone's when you have three of Korea's biggest movie stars, um, starring. Give me Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef, and (especially) Eli Wallach any day. Because when you take the industry's biggest names and make a movie that -- ostensibly* -- features them, someone's going to get short changed in this menage a trois. In this case, that man is Jeong Woo-seong as The Good. Jeong -- even though his bleached teeth are Tony Robbins-level scary -- does a commendable job for someone who is basically written out of the movie. He's pretty much a plot device to get Song Kangho's The Weird from one place to another; which is a shame, because it appears that the director or screenwriter didn't realize what made TGTBATU so special: the interplay between The Good and The Ugly. Instead, what we get is The Weird and The Bad starring, with sporadic cameos from The Good. Rule of thumb: don't rely too heavily on your bad guy, Korean filmmakers. And please don't give him a stupid haircut and have him wear eyeliner. That shit's just dumb.
Oh, the plot? Sorry. This movie has plot up the yin-yang. Here's the Cliff's Notes version:
The Bad wants to steal a map-MacGuffin on a train. This map contains some sort of secret treasure**. The Weird beats him to it. The Good, with information that said map could lead to Korean independence (and, ultimately, edible Mexican food in Seoul), tracks down The Weird. But The Bad is hot on their trail. The Bad and The Weird have this rivalry thing going, sort of like how Kmart gets when I beat him at Mario Kart or don't eat my french fries/omurice/donut. The Weird sneaks off with the map while The Good is sleeping. He goes to an opium den and stabs a guy in the ass. Then a bunch of dirty-faced kids save his, um, ass by doing the same thing (I'm not joking). Upon learning that the map has gotten into the wrong hands, the Japanese army, the Korean independence movement, and -- I'm pretty sure -- Smurfs all chase after the map stealer, which begs the question If this map is such a big deal and no one should have stolen it, how in pluperfect hell does everyone know where the secret location is? a 10-plus-minute chase involving horseback riders, men on motorcyles, the Japanese army in Jeeps, dynamite, cannons, exploding horses***, and myriad old men ensues across the Manchurian Plateau, this little ditty culminating in the three titular characters facing off against one another.
Which brings me to my biggest gripe about this admittedly fun picture. See, in TGTBATU the standoff at the end happens naturally. Everthing, to be sure, has been leading up to the moment, but it's handled so deftly that the tension has reached a boiling point. In TGTBATW, however, The Weird reaches the destination, The Good catches up with him (which makes absolutely no sense, by the way), and then The Bad strolls in, asking the other two to play a game in which the spoils will go to the last man standing.
So, fuck me like a gaping stomach wound, this movie will be resolved by a deus ex machina in the form of screenwriter incompentence. "Let's play a game." Are you fucking serious? And, to make matters worse, the shootout that follows is both overlong and poorly edited. All involved get riddled with bullets, but only one dies (try and guess who; it's not that hard). And that's one of the film's many flaws: it's too preoccupied with violence for violence's sake to make it a compelling movie, so before the audience has time to feel any sort of tense atmosphere they're interrupted by explosions, blood, and terrible sound effects.
A lot (and I mean a fuckload) of praise should be heaped upon Song Kangho for making this film enjoyable. Like I said, he's no Eli Wallach, but his scenes -- discounting the awkwardly filmed and poorly conceived opium den mess -- are pretty much awesome; and what the film lacks in homage it almost makes up for in a scene where Song Kangho's The Weird, ducking from a shitload of bullets, dons a diver's helmet to deflect enemy fire. The man has presence.
This should have been a great movie. Instead, it's a pretty good one filled with terrible screenwriting, god-awful direction (please, stop using that 360-degree camera pan, Korean filmmakers; and just because The Borne Supremacy made a lot of money doesn't mean that shaky cam is a good thing. It's not.), and a shitty score. Seriously, you had to use the same music from Kill Bill? Hang your head in shame, The Good, the Bad and the Weird.
PS - I'm a horse. An exploding one.
3/4 *_*
(As far as the image goes, fair is fair, right? You deprive me of what people are calling the cinematic blowjob of the summer to ensure that your domestic film, released on the same day TDK opened in North America, makes some bank, and I'll hit right back, Peninsula. Good luck at the Olympics. I hear that a little head-to-head competition isn't your forte, though. Which is why you'll clean up at archery.)
* Doctor, it's happening again.
** the answer to whether or not Lee Hyori's tits are fake
*** that alone worth the price of admission
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