Kimchi Westerns

We've seen it before and we'll certainly see it again: Asian Western movies. Most often, they are like nothing you've ever experienced before.

Ji-Woon Kim has given us an incredible film with 'The Good, the Bad and the Weird," an extremely compelling remake of Leone's famous movie, which many refer to as the greatest Western ever made. I generally have unrelenting contempt for remakes, both for the movies themselves and especially for the concept of remakes, but this is definitely the exception. Tremendous filmmaking, a fun story and a healthy dose of humor make this movie damn enjoyable.

I was very interested to see what they kept from the original and what they chucked out. Gone is the "turn in the bandit, shoot the rope he's being hung with" gag, as well as the discovery of the gold's existence from a dying confederate soldier. Remaining is one of the first scenes from "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly," where the Bad shows his insidious nature by murdering in cold blood the man who hired him. Also, towards the end of Leone's film, the Ugly takes off on a horse towards the graveyard, leaving Clint Eastwood by himself. He casually uses his cigar to light cannon fuses and fire heavy ammuntion comically at Tuco as he rides away. In the South Korean remake, the fleeing-while-being-fired on by artillerary becomes an amazing actual chase sequence. They even used the fact that Lee Van Cleef was missing the tip of his finger as a plot device for the Bad in "The Good, the Bad and the Weird."

This is one of the funnest, most bad-ass movies to come out in awhile. And if you're not a Western person, I guarentee that this film has none of the specific qualities that keeps you from the genre.

And check out "A Tale of Two Sisters" and "A Bittersweet Life," two other films by Ji-Woon Kim that are available at our stories.