The Good, The Bad, The Weird Film Review (2008) – Korean Western Comedy

A western movie inspired by Sergio Leone‘s The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, and is directed by Kim Jee Woon, this is not exactly a Korean remake but it borrows some of the former ideas heavily. With some great casts and the same western setting, this is the film that contains something more than meet the eyes. But how much can it do to captivate the audience? Check out The Good, the Bad, the Weird film review below to check it out!

Premise

In the Manchuria Desert, three characters are fighting for a different cause, however, all three of them meet up and get embroiled in the conflict of the area. But perhaps only few could survive, and they have to fight it out among themselves. Who will stand victorious?

The Good The Bad The Weird betrayal scene — All’s fair in love and war and fights

Review

Perhaps the most distinct is the visual of the film; we are shown a harsh bright desert that contains only some life. Straight away, we are brought to the train hijacking and introduced to the three main characters at once. They are fighting for a different reason against one another; one being anti-hero, one is an antagonist and finally a cowardly thief. The pace is kept ongoing through many action scenes one after another, and it can get a bit tiring when the fight keeps dragging. Although, I am impressed by them with great choreography, great camera works that swoop smoothly from one scene to the next and finally the production value seen in the props and sets.

The greatest weakness of the story is the development of the characters in my opinion. Sure, there are some intimate scenes between them and the side characters and some flashbacks but ultimately, this film is more of action visual than storytelling. We will not see a dramatic scene that moved you but as consolation, this film gives you very cool fights especially near the end when all the Chinese gang, Japanese military and Korean gang fight against one another and finally the three-way fight of the 3 heroes.

The Good, The Bad, The Weird Film Review (2008) – Korean Western Comedy

Story

Pacing

Characters

Soundtrack

Reader Rating0 Votes0

What's good?

Full of action packed and comedic scenes

The 3 Main characters are as distinct in style and personality

Some great choreography and stunts

What's bad?

Pacing are quite bad in the middle portion due to dragginess

Excessive characters without most of them given enough screen time

3.7

Pretty good!

A good action-oriented film marred by pacing and excessive characters

It is a great visual feast for an Asian western theme films and I enjoyed every single action sequences in the film, which is plenty. However, some of them can be dragged too long and lose some of its appeals. There are numerous great camera works and the production value featuring the train hijacking and an entire market being built makes a pretty setting for the actions. There are plenty of characters but sadly they are not fully fleshed out. Certainly, this is a good film for visual feasts featuring actions, guns, and blood, let down only by its story and characters.

Author Details

Author Details

Anthony L Tjandra

An everyday guy who is the founder of Controller Companies. He started it when he was frustrated to find that the stuff he bought had no reviews available online. Thus, this website is created with the sole purpose of reviewing stuff that he has seen, bought, used or enjoyed! Now, he is probably doing another review while you are reading this.