Mark Russell who runs the blog Korea Pop Wars did a nice review of The Good, The Bad, The Weird, which came out in Korea this past Friday.
According to Hollywood Reporter, its opening box office was ranked third all time, behind D-Wars and The Host.
Per Mark:
… I can confirm that Kim Jee-woon’s “eastern Western” is a heck of a lot of fun. Lots of great action from beginning to end…
Most amazingly for a Korean movie, TGTBTW has no annoying crying scenes, nor does it end in tears. Seriously, think about it. I cannot think of any movie in the Korean top 25 that did not end with a climatic weepy scene…. But THE GOOD, THE BAD, THE WEIRD is all fun and totally worthwhile. (Emphasis mine)
FYI, TFTBTW will be showing at Yongsan CGV with English subtitles for all those in Korea who are interested.
20 Comments
motherland residents claim it is as bad as D-War. No story, they say.
This was nothing that unique anyway.
It’s been done before in
N A P A J.
Yay! The movie was good!… apparently.
Now I can only hope that the local independent theater is going to show it. Harkins… please? Pretty please?
Now that I think about it, a lot of Korean movies do end with weeping scenes - even the ones you wouldn’t expect it to… Taegukgi, Oldboy, Lady Vengeance…
Strangely, one of the most prominent Korean romantic comedy, My Sassy Girl, doesn’t end with a weeping scene.
re: My Sassy Girl, yeah but it was sappy at the end.
@#1, NOTHING could be as bad a D Wars.
I have a good friend at a previous employment whose son is actually finishing up at USC Film School. Really doing well for himself in that industry…..did a video for the Smashing Pumpkins, constantly working in that industry, making about 5x more than I did when I got out of college, yet he’s still in his sr. year.
Anyways I had a chance to meet him once and he’s just such a bright kid….really super, good attitude, not stuck up, smart, intelligent, etc.
Yeah, the type you would actually let your daughter date.
The night I met him, he was actually going to go see D Wars for the 2nd time.
He said he wanted to confirm that out of all the movies he had seen in his life, that D Wars was in fact the worst movie he had ever seen.
His dad confirmed to me the next day that it had won top honors.
“Most amazingly for a Korean movie, TGTBTW has no annoying crying scenes, nor does it end in tears.”
There’s a first time for everything!
Choi Minsik and Song Gangho are my all time favorite male actors..I definately look forward to this one. I wish they go to mainstream threaters instead of ones in West LA that show artsy, indie stuff.
Wang, remember there was KA owned small theater in LA K-town on Vermont ave (if I know correctly) that shows just released Korean movie…they were selling dry Octopus and other Korean movie snacks..man I miss that place!!
no annoying weepy stuff? jesus! are we still in Korea? what’s next, a MUSIC VIDEO with no annoying weepy stuff? this westernization has got to stop!
@#6, yeah, if you are referring to the place that was on vermont near the 101 freeway………that place was super dangerous to be out at past dark.
#8
Yup! right next to the 101 freeway! It is dangerous because you had to park in the street to go watch movie..Come to think of it, all places in LA K-town are dangerous at night…but it still doesn’t deter many people to go meet friends and hang out there. BTW, was neighborhood crime the reason they shut down that theater?
Don’t remember that theatre, but a new one has opened up.
http://www.mpark4.com/
And another one will open soon.
http://www.angelenic.com/777/d.....rd-madang/
Can’t wait to see TGTBTW, I’m a glutton for 1930s Manchukuo nostalgia and want to see how well they recreate the ambience. But it’ll have to play in Vancouver or Seattle for me to see it!
I started watching Korean films back in the 1960s. There was an informal ‘hankerchief rating system’. A ‘good’ film required at least three handkerchiefs to wipe away the tears. The whole point of going to Korean films was the emotional catharsis of crying.
Question: when I tried to watch “A man once superman” (or something close to it) at Yongsan (they said it had English subtitles), it was only during one specific session and, if not mistaken, very late on a Sat or Sun. Kind of a “foreigners session”.
Do you know if the English subtitles will be in all sessions or also just in this specific one? Actually, I don’t understand why they don’t keep the damn subt’s there the whole time…
#10
Cool!! Gonna go check it out!!
Well, once again it was time to see the next “big” Korean blockbuster The Good, The Bad and The Weird and once again I went into the movie with no high hopes and I got exactly what I thought I would get. An empty, pretty, popcorn picture.
What you have in this film is Woo-sung Jung playing “The Good” a bounty hunter who hates the fact that Japan has taken over Korea. We also have Byung-hun Lee playing “The Bad” a exiled Korean who wants to become a legendary bandit. Lastly, we have Kang-ho Song playing “The Weird” who plays a simple bandit who wants to become rich.
The plot of the film is during the Japanese occupation of Manchuria in the 1930s. The Weird steals a map from a Japanese official. The Bad is paid to get the map back. The Good is a bounty hunter who tracks them both down to return the map to the Korean Independence Army.
If you suspend reality for awhile, the film will work for you. I kept watching the film and I kept wondering, “What in the heck were they thinking when they were making this film?” The song that kept playing over and over was written in the 1960’s not the 30’s when this film supposedly takes place. It was this error and a lot of the little historical errors in this flick that made me turn against this film.
Now, the film has some very funny shots and it and you will laugh at some of it. Each time that Kang-ho Song humor is on the screen, he dwarfs the other actors and this, in my humble opinion, also hurts the film. I had the chance to see this film at the Yongsan CGV where the film will play for a few weeks with English Subtitles. The subtle humor was lost in the translation and this will also hurt the film when it plays in a very limited release in the US in early 2009.
Overall if you want to see a good popcorn film over the weekend this will be worth one viewing. Any more that that will led to a disappointment once again with Korean Films.
Grade. C-
How I saw it. Yongsan CGV (With English Subtitles)
Opened in Korea on 17 July 2008.
http://www.socius.or.kr/2008/0.....#more-1221
yup, C- seems to be the grade, if you can read hangul on naver.
Song Gangho is weilding double walther p38’s in the poster.
In the trailer, I thought they were 2 revolvers.
Interestingly, they are in Japanese territory, but apparently they are not using Nambu’s.
So, we can conclude thieves and outlaws in Manchuria obtained better firearms than the Japanese Imperial Army of Manchuria.
if it makes it any better, the “epic” Romance of the Three Kingdoms movie with the plot of Cao Cao’s daughter fighting Zhao Yun seems to have been an expensive, shitty movie as well.
I would say the “epic” tv series was just as shitty, but I don’t want to upset the Chinese.
Just kidding.
actually, the ROTK tv series fighting scenes are comparably shitty as the fighting scenes in Taejo Wangkon.
Choi Soojong got a little better with Jangbogo, though. Probably due to that other dude, Song ilguk.
with a hypothetical KOR-US FTA in effect, and McCain at President,
instead of the socialist nationalist, anti-trade, xenophobic Obama,
Bale’s Dark Knight would have kicked ass while being in the same competition with Nom X 3.
Damn the haters of free trade !
“FYI, TFTBTW will be showing at Yongsan”
Marmot, what happened with the Good?
He got F**cked as usual?
Why did you change the G with F?
Yeah, but it included the usual 똥침 scene among other antics that only the Koreans giggle at. It was reasonably entertaining, but it annoyed me in the beginning when GN was using a double barrel shotgun that shot bullets like a rifle.