The Good, The Bad, and the Weird

As you might expect from the title, Korea’s eye-popping The Good, The Bad, and the Weird "reimagines" The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly. And while there is a three way standoff and a missing treasure, TGTBTW blazes its own trail in 1930s Japanese-occupied Manchuria.

"The Bad" executes the most stylish of train heists only to find the treasure map he is supposed to recover for a mob boss has been filched by "The Weird", a seemingly bumbling but unstoppable opportunist. But "The Good" is in hot pursuit of the bounty on The Weird’s head. Soon all three are tangled in a race for buried Qing dynasty treasure across the barren desert. Did I mention that two armies join them in the insane, ever-building climax?

While strictly an action/chase movie, the sweeping production of this epic is spectacular. Plus the cast is pitch perfect: Byun-hun Lee is terrifying and slick as The Bad, Woo-sung Jung is icy cool as The Good, and Kang-ho Song is delightfully amoral as The Weird. The amazing shootout in the Ghost Market alone will make you want to watch this movie twice.

AICN Secret Screening #1: The Brothers Bloom

Fantastic Fest always has a series of mystery screenings which leads to a constant buzz of speculation throughout the festival. And as FF proved last year (Persepolis and There Will Be Blood were shown), the secret screenings are not limited to horror or the fantastic. This year’s first surprise was Rian Johnson’s The Brothers Bloom with Adrien Brody and Rachel Weisz.

Con-men since birth, orphaned brothers Stephen (Mark Ruffalo) and Bloom (Brody) cut their own path through the world moving from one grand, meticulously orchestrated scam to the next with their enigmatic sidekick, Bang Bang. But Bloom has had enough and retires from his brother’s schemes. Stephen isn’t done with his sibling yet, though. He reels Bloom back in on one last con centered around the lonely, eccentric Penelope who also happens to be fabulously rich. Bloom warily hunts for an unscripted life but can never be sure if he and Penelope (Weisz) have left Stephen’s schemes.

I thoroughly enjoyed this movie as long as I didn’t try to analyze the con too much. Several of Stephen’s twists seemed to be for the sake of the plot but didn’t make sense much on their own. The comedy is stellar though, reminding me a bit of a classic Peter Sellers movie with a dash of Wes Anderson. Rinko Kikuchi as Bang Bang, Stephen’s silent personal assistant, is particularly charming.