The Good, The Bad, The Weird is a celebration of Western and Eastern film genres. We have Asian men robbing a train with six shooters and bolt-action rifles, all the while wearing cowboy hats and boots. But before we know it we're whisked off into an Asian market for criminals known as the "Ghost Market" and find ourselves surrounded by all sorts of treasures from Asian culture.
Similar to Takashi Miike's recent collision of two massively different cultures, Sukiyaki Western Django, director Ji-Woo Kim's brilliantly fun action/adventure is worth checking out just to see the strange mixture of the two. But where Miike's film was slightly more showy with its combination of the two culture's genres (although that was admittedly part of its charm), this plays it far more straight and feels a lot more like a seamlessly merged combination, sometimes so much so you forget you're watching such a mixture, instead of a jarring mash-up.
The Good, The Bad, The Weird is the story of three outlaws in 1930s Manchuria (an historical name given to a vast region in Northeast Asia) who are all after a map which is said to lead to a hidden treasure. However these three aren't the only ones after the map, and soon they find they not only have to beat each other to the chase, but also various other parties including the Japanese army.
Clearly influenced by The Good, The Bad and the Ugly, this is indeed a strange film to be made in Korea. Primarily because the style of the '60s Western classic is very much not of Eastern style, the very sight of seeing the two cultures clash is startling at first. But because of how straight the film plays it, focusing more on the story and ensuing action at hand, you soon get used to the combination. From the opening action scene this promises to be a rip-roaring action/adventure ride and it delivers tremendously. From a gleefully long train robbery with everyone with a working trigger finger shooting at each other to the start of the search for this mysterious treasure and beyond, this is wholly entertaining, wildly fun stuff that packs so many punches it's almost exhausting.
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