022 The Good The Bad The Weird (2008)

“IF YOU CHASE SOMETHING TO GET SOMETHING, SOMETHING WILL COME CHASING YOU.“

Today, on the first foreign film we have covered on the podcast, we take a look at 2008’s action-comedy or “kimchi western“ as the director describes it, “The Good the Bad the Weird“ directed by South Korean auteur, Kim Jee-woon. If you aren’t familiar with Kim Jee-woon, this might be the best place to start!

On this episode we discuss what the cinema landscape looked like in South Korea in 2008, and how they protect their cinema from the big Hollywood studios from dominating their domestic box office. We also talk about how this director directs his action films compared to Hollywood action films, even including Kim’s Hollywood action film: The Last Stand, with Arnold Schwarzenegger.

This film is not only fun and hilarious, but also takes place in a very interesting setting. When we think “westerns“ we think of the American West in the 19th century. So what does that look like from a Korean persepctive? How do the desert imagery, colonial themes, bandits and gunslingers translate into 1930’s Manchuria? Does this film also borrow from Italian westerns, aside from the obvious play on words title borrowing from Sergio Leone’s The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly?

Although this film was generally reviewed well, we talk about how fair the consensus’ phrasing “style over substance“ applies to this film, as well as some of the implicit racism in the reviews (even from the ones that LIKE the movie!)

We also discuss one of the biggest lies in the film industry: “no Animals were harmed during the making of this film.“ when doing a bit of research on some of the “horse stunts“ in this film.

If you haven’t seen this movie, you can do so on Hulu, Amazon Prime, iTunes and more. We encourage you to watch this film if you care about spoilers, because we talk about the ending, and how the easily available “International Cut“ varies from the original “Korean Cut.” Hope you enjoy the episode, see you in two weeks for Hook!

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