The Good, The Bad, The Weird is an imaginative attempt at something new. Director Ji-Woon Kim struggles to weave a narrative beyond the memorable action sequences, although these are mainly shoot outs than hand-to-hand combat. There's far too much going on; a real sense of throwing everything into the mix. What you're left with is a film overly long at 130 minutes that could have benefited from more focused editing and a simplier script.
A 2009 Korean spaghetti western set in the Manchurian desert by talented director Kim Jee-Woon. It has its OTT cringe moments thanks to a Jackie-Chan-type character (the ‘weird’), but the ‘good’ is suitably heroic and the ‘bad’ is brilliant, thanks to Lee Byung-Hun’s usual charismatic screen presence.
Above all, the set pieces, as in all Kim films, are glorious. He revels in the power of visual cinema, playing with the image in an almost Godardian way. The opening train heist is flamboyantly filmed with swooping fly-cams and travelling shots. Even better: a sweeping 12 minute chase sequence across the desert that is part of a brilliant last half-hour paying homage to Sergio Leone.