I was in New York last weekend, I attended a showing of this South Korean film in a very peculiar (yet completely awesome) independent movie theatre in which all of the seats were from cars.
The film is a sort of Asian take on the western genre (particularly the famous spaghetti western the good the bad and the ugly) the plot revolves around three central protagonists, a bounty hunter who is seeking to kill an infamous serial killer, an assassin who’s widely believed to be the serial killer that the bounty hunter is searching for and a common thief who has a tendency to kill people with twin German lugers as well as with his funky kung fu death moves .

With that said it can be assumed that there’s a lot of action in the film, which of course there is. Although the movie is sprinkled with some light humorous undertones for comedic relief the central point and coincidentally the films greatest achievement is its action sequences, I truly believe that Asia has us beet when it comes to choreographing fight scenes, directors like John Woo could out explosion Michael Bay any day. The action is some of the most exciting I’ve ever seen in recent years, you will truly enjoy it, unless you’re a loveless and lifeless husk of a person.
As mentioned before the film does have some jokes, although the humor takes a backseat to the action its never in vain, the jokes are well planned and funny and they don’t detract from the story, if anything they propel it forward. It feels like the comedic style of a Jackie Chan film mixed with a Clint Eastwood western mixed yet again with a martial arts film.
But the mix seems to work as director Ji-Woo Kim brings us exciting cinematic throwback to some old cinematic styles.
One of the most interesting aspects of the film is its setting, the whole thing takes place during WWII in Manchuria, incorporating imperial Japan as well as Korean freedom fighters into the plot. I don’t want to say to much but it really adds to the atmosphere plus its very intriguing to see a different approach to the western genre, in fact you should probably call it an Eastern, perhaps they reached California got in boat and kept going west until they hit Manchuria, so its not east it’s just really far west, so west you might not even be able to handle it.
Bottom line, great film, amazing action, decent plot, interesting view on the western genre. I would suggest this film to anyone who’s a fan of both action comedies and westerns or either of them.