"The Good, the Bad, and the Weird" (2008)

The Good, the Bad, and the Weird reveals its intentions right in the title. It's a dazzling throwback to the spaghetti western, playing fast and loose with the plot of The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly and referencing or paying tribute to countless classics of the genre. Three colorful gunslingers, each representing the titular personality types, set out to find a buried treasure at the center of a complicated East Asian geopolitical, military struggle in the 1930's, just on the cusp of World War II. Bumbling, good-natured Yoon Tae-goo (Song Kang-ho) stumbles upon the map to a hidden national treasure accidentally while robbing a train. Coincidentally, the charmingly sadistic Park Chang-yi (Lee Byung-hun) has designs to rob the train as well, and the stoic bounty hunter Park Do-won (Jung Woo-sung) is on Chang-yi's tail to pick up the bounty on his head. Once Tae-goo acquires the map, it's off the races as the three try to retrieve the map while still other forces, including the Manchurian army, attempt to lay claim to the map.

The train heist is merely the film's first action setpiece. From there the film stages action sequence after action sequence, each more intense and stylish than the last. Director Kim Jee-woon is a stylist of the first order, and each action scene is deliriously frenetic, deliberately calibrated for maximum thrilling entertainment. Jee-woon is excellent at choreographing complicated action and placing us right in the midst of the drama. The film is exciting for staging chaotic, complex action, and yet making it all, not only coherent, but all go off like a masterful piece of well-planned clockwork. The film gives a delightful sense of constant giddy headrush. But Jee-woon, perhaps most significantly, keeps one-eye towards the film's cinematic heritage, while keeping another looking forward to crafting something unique and modern.

There are some subtler things going on the background suggestive of Korean-Japanese relations. Japan turned Korea into a colony in the early 20th century. This was tied up with complicated military and political plans in Manchuria, where Japan placed a puppet state in that region of China. There are criticisms of Japans war crimes and generally brutal behavior in the region and towards Korea, and frequent discussions of Korea's bitter, desperate attempts at regaining independence at the time. The film is critical of Japan in this rehard, but this more generally serves as information to add to the verisimilitude of the historical setting. It's the backdrop for the more personal, character-based conflict between the three main characters, giving their singular quest a sense of operatic scope. The politics are the least of the film's concerns; a rollicking good time is its primary interest and it amply provides with affection and pizazz.

 Grade: ★★★