rebzombie reviews

Joheunnom Nabbeunnom Isanghannom or The Good, The Bad, The Weird might be the best Korean Western I’ve seen so far. Actually it’s the first one I’ve seen but it does justice to the old cowboy movies, including The Good, The Bad and the Ugly.

The Good. Woo-sung Jung (The Good), Byung-hun Lee (The Bad) and Kang-ho Song (The Weird) played their parts well. It also helps that the movie took place in picturesque Manchuria where each scene is breathtaking. The movie takes us to that particular place and time for the duration of the movie. Byung-hun Lee was extraordinary in this movie and I think that casting him as Storm Shadow for the upcoming G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra is a good choice.

The Bad. Don’t look for any plot in this one. Everyone’s after a map and when I say everyone that includes the Good, the Bad and the Weird along with opium dealers, thieves and the Japanese army. But it is still entertaining and action-filled as they chase for the map all over Manchuria.

The Weird. Despite the lack of plot, I enjoyed the movie. There were funny moments and the best one is when the three were in the spot where the treasure was supposed to be but they found nothing there. Just as The Good, The Bad, The Weird are killing each other, oil spurted and they don’t know what it was.

I expected the three of them to die just like in any other Korean action movie but then only Bad died. Good miraculously survived being shot by two expert gunslingers while Weird was wearing a steel plate to protect himself. The Good, The Bad, The Weird is the perfect movie to kill time.

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