The western heads East in The Good, The Bad and the Weird as the Koreans give Hollywood a lesson in how to make proper western flick.

THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE WEIRD

DIRECTED BY: Kim Jee-Woon
 
STARRING: Song Kang-Ho, Lee Byung-Hun and Jung Woo-Sung

Release date: 6 February
Cert: 15A
Running time: 129 minutes
Website: www.thegoodthebadtheweird.com

The Good, The Bad And The Weird opens in very low-key, hushed kind of manner. The set-up is nice and easy. We flip between two conversations. In the first, someone is being instructed to transport a map. In the other, someone is being hired to steal said map. This nice relaxed opening represents the movie about as well as George Hook would represent Morocco in the Ms.World competition, as the second scene sees the movie erupt into a marathon of action that rarely stops for a breather.

Set in the 1930s Manchurian desert, the film follows the Yoon Tae-Goo(Song Kang-ho) after he gains possession of the afore mentioned map in a train robbery. The audience is adorned with rich colours and an amazing sound track as Tae-Goo works his way through the train until he reaches the first class carriage, where he sets about sticking up the occupants (they have the map).

While Tai-Goo is busy withdrawing funds, we cut to sweeping visuals outside the train where Park Chang-Yi (Lee Byung-Hun) is ensuring that the train faces an unexpected delay. Chang-Yi was the man hired to steal the map the beginning, and he sets about raiding the train with his posse in search of his bounty. Chang-Yi is a hired gun who shoots as sharp as he dresses (which is very sharp) and is handy with a knife as well. His posse is a typical rag tag collective that you come across in action movies, including one guy who sends people flying with a giant mallet.

As Chang-Yi and his boys are working their way through the carriages they come under fire. Park Do-Won (Jung Woo-Sung) is a bounty hunter with big shot gun and a grudge against Chang-Yi. The robbery descends into a shoot-out and Tae-Goo escapes with the map amidst all the commotion.

The rest of the film sees Do-Won chasing Chang-Yi, as he chases Tae-Goo, as he tries to figure where the map leads and what treasures it holds. Add to this a gang of bandits, Korean freedom fighters and the Japanese army who also want to get their mitts on the map.

The action never lets up in this swashbuckling shoot-em-up as Tae-Goo bungles his way across the desert, and of course the three have a number of encounters with each other along the way.

Don’t be fooled by the fact that this film comes from the far east. This is not a Shanghai Noon style kung-fu movie with a stetson on. This is a full blooded western, set in the desert with the elements of martial arts, action adventure and chase movies mixed in. They also smuggle in a quick history lesson.

There’s a lot of blood and a hint of opium so it picked up a 15A cert, which is a pity because this is exactly the type of film I would have loved as a nipper. That’s not to say I don’t love it now though. If your young at heart and like to see things go bang, you should like it too. Check it out.