Some films are meant to be watched and not thought. Jee-woon Kim's The Good, the Bad, The Weird is one of them. But still people exist who mistake a trampoline for a painted canvas... The one they call Abrams says this movie is "
a cacaphonous exercise in futility." Why Mr. Abe, some of the greatest pleasures in life are futile exercises... unless you're one of those "no coitus without conception" cats. He continues:
"The film is about the insignificance of history in what was once strictly considered to be a period-based genre, a conceptually fascinating ideological foundation to be sure, but also one that's practically worthless."
Talk about yer ever-lovin' cacophony! As a practical matter, I assure you GBW is worth exactly the price of admission... in any currency. Conceptually, I don't know enough about ideological foundations to be fascinated by them, let alone "be sure" about it. Go back to lepidoptery school, Mr. Abrahms, where people will appreciate you pinning beautiful things down with latin.
But I digress. It's sometimes hard for me to express pure affection. I was never praised as a child... when something like GBW comes along, I can only mock its detractors. What we have here is a high-concept film--Jee-woo Kim plays one of Sergio Leone's cowboy operettas on a 1930's Manchurian turntable, cranked to 78 RPM--in which the concept is pure MacGuffin. Leone's masterpiece is footprints on the floor, this is Jee-woo's dance: The Good (Woo-sung Jung) is better, the Bad (Byung-hun Lee) is drunker, and the Ugly turned Weird (Kang-ho Song) and once again steals the show. All three of them (and the Japanese Army and an army of bandits) are after some treasure and the map that leads to it.... so there's a touch of
that movie my uncle likes so well in there too.
Jae-woo's action scenes are faster and more dynamic than the Big Leone's, but the spaghettis had a certain seriousness to them. You wont find any ponderous shots of dying soldiers in GBW. You will find plenty of Leone's trademark wit, which measures
among the greatest to ever point the camera at sombrero (or anything else). Wit happens when economy meets novelty; it's the new best way to say something. Strange to speak of economy in a movie so packed to the hilt as The Good/Bad/Weird, but Jae-woo doesn't mince shots or waste them either; everything is purposeful and delivered with charm... which is what makes this film wonderful instead of tedious. Wit without charm is a facial tic.
*head over to the
Korean Cinema Blogathon 2012 for a bunch more reviews should inspire you to explore that miracle that is.... Korean Cinema!
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