The Good, The Bad, The Weird

I saw this movie at walmart, this "The Good, The Bad, The Weird", for $9.98.

Wow that looks cool.

Nope, Isaac, come on, you aren't made of $9.98's.

But it's some kinda korean western.

Be responsible.

It looks CRAZY AWESOME!

I'm walking away now.

Aaaand I bought it. How'd that happen??

Full disclosure, despite my recent Eastwood kick over on the Dirty Harry movies, I have NOT seen pretty much any of Eastwoods westerns (Unforgiven being the exception), including "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly", a movie title (if nothing else) very obviously being referenced in "The Good, The Bad, The Weird".

It actually took me some time to realize the movie wasn't called "The Good, The Bad, AND The Weird".

Set in 1930's Manchuria, which is apparently in China- I would have guessed that myself if the characters hadn't all made reference to the fact that they were korean and wouldn't believe when a character could only understand chinese- and they were right to do so: every character that spoke chinese was indeed trying to trick someone, and was in fact korean. Of course I'd be convinced the story took place in Korea!

I got side tracked. Anyways, the story for the most part follows a thief (perhaps the titular "Weird") who has stolen a treasure map during a train heist, a treasure map that just so happens to have been what the most accomplished assassin (perhaps the "Bad") in Manchuria had his little heart set on grabbing. The assassin is a pretty scary dude, so tough luck for the hapless thief that now has to make a run for it.

Also in play is the bounty hunter (definitely the "Good") on the trail of the assassin, whose capture would net a nice financial reward and get rid of the notorious "Finger Chopper" I think was the nick-name for the guy... or anyways, the Bounty Hunter THINKS the Finger Chopper and the assassin are one and the same buuuut...

And huge spoiler for the end of the movie: so the three are at the X of the treasure map, finding nothing (I guess it was revealed to be an oil well, not exactly something you can just pick up and take away with you) and the assassin demands a three way duel. This looks massively unfair for the bumbling thief, who's been comedy relief the whole movie. However, the assassin reveals that he wants to kill the thief, not just because the assassin wants the treasure map, but as revenge for CHOPPING OFF HIS FINGER!!!

That's right- the thief, the character we spend the most time with, turns out to be the Finger Chopper that the bounty hunter really wanted to get for the sake of eradicating evil.

Oh ho! So this final battle is more fair than we thought!

The three exchange their shots, and it really looks like everyone is dead. Fade to black, credits- WHAAAT? I wasn't expecting this to be such a nihilistic picture! and then there was an additional scene, where a wanted poster for the assassin is marked as "Dead" while the Thief's poster is changed to reflect a MUCH higher bounty, and the Bounty Hunter is sitting there, set to track him down.

Whew, okay, I can deal with that ending better, thanks.