Shwisaseuleul geunheola

South Korean trash: a spaghetti western transferred to Manchuria at the time of the Japanese occupation, obviously based on "The good, the bad and the ugly", with three crooks of different orientations chasing after the same treasure. But that's where the similarity in the story ends. Musically, there are echoes of Morricone and the camera zooms and pans wildly, although not everything is always in focus.

The fight scenes are often amusing and seem parodic, although they were certainly not meant to be. The sounds are often too early or too late and everything sounds the same. A punch in the face and a punch in the stomach, it always sounds like a piece of wood being broken in two. The actors are not bad, but the script demands a lot of nonsense from them. At the end it suddenly becomes patriotic, probably a concession to the censors to justify the existence of this movie.

The movie, from my understanding, takes place while Korea and Manchuria were under Japanese control, so pre-WW2. The japanese serve as the primary antagonists here but the real conflict of interest is between the three protagonist - mischiefs from different background who all are fuelled by greed to partake on a common task. What makes the chemistry between them so fascinating is that they are so open about betraying eachother at some point.

Their main goal is to hunt down a golder Buddha statue - they manage to complete this part of the task but then end up stealing and trying to run away from the others to achieve their personal goals, whether to gain reputation, money or prestige - but the real underlying meaning is of patriotism, of the Korean resistance. One of the protagonists was already a member of the resistance while the other two didn't care two much, one of them even was a former collaborator for the japanese. While money for the statue or respect from the japanese might of been more important for them in the beginning, the set of events ended up with them believing in a free Korea.

Although that's the premise, it's also important to address the comedy element in the movie. I must admit, that each of the actors had a great laugh, epsecially those with a deeper voice, but at some points I found myself curious how long of a segment we could get if we just combined every single moment somebody just laughted during the movie. I wouldn't call it annoying but there was a point during the movie where I just couldn't help but thing that the amount of scenes where the actors are laughing is wild.