As awesome South Korean actioner The Good, The Bad, The Weird hits DVD, Roll Credits caught up with the film's cast and director...

The Good, The Bad, The Weird may be one of the most exciting films to come out of South Korea, but it owes a great deal to iconic Western traditions from Hollywood and beyond. (The film is, of course, a nod to Sergio Leone’s classic spaghetti western The Good, The Bad and The Ugly). And director Kim Ji-woon doesn’t shy away from the fact that his film has been inspired by some of the most memorable moments in Western cinema. “The films I want to watch and make always start with an exciting movie moment,” Ji-Woon says with a smile. “A lone gunman walking the vast desert, cold winds blowing through the empty plains, a sudden fire flaring out from the end of a muzzle. These scenes are all familiar clichés from the Western, but they never cease to captivate me.”

Ji-Woon’s frenetic film is set in late-1930s Manchuria, and sees the lives of three strangers violently collide over a stolen treasure map. These men are a ‘Good’ bounty hunter (played by Jung Woo-Sung), a ‘Bad’ mob boss (Lee Byung-hun) and a ‘Weird’ low-level thief (Song Kang-ho), and all three actors are clearly thrilled to be part of such an explosive project. “It was a thoroughly refreshing experience to play a villain for the first time in my career,” explains Lee Byung-hun, who is a huge star in his native Korea and will soon be making his Hollywood debut as Shadow Storm in GI Joe: Rise of the Cobra. “I didn’t have to think, ‘The character must have his reasons for that kind of behavior’. Rather, I just had to create his walk, his manner, his expression, his way of speech and try to get down to character.”

For Jung Woo-Sung, it was the chance to work with countryman Kim Ji-Woon that made him sign on the dotted line. “Any actor would love a chance to work with [him],” he says. “I had my hopes, too, and wasn’t let down. He pulls out hidden talents that the actor doesn’t even know he has within him and lets him enjoy them.”

It was the involvement of Kim Ji-Woon that also appealed to fellow actor Lee Byung-hun, who was already well aware of the director’s talents. “This is my second collaboration with Kim Ji-Woon after A Bittersweet Life. The Good, The Bad, The Weird is a more entertaining film, so I think the production as a whole was more fun this time around. If the tone of the film is serious and dark, it’s bound to be filled with suffering and agony, but the genre here calls for the viewer, as well as the characters in the film, to be excited so it was fun work!”

The character who looks to be having the most fun in the film is the bumbling criminal Yoon Tae-goo, played by Song Kang-ho. But the actor reveals that he didn’t immediately realize he was meant to be the comic relief. “Tae-goo is the Weird, but when I first read the script I didn’t realize who the weird one really was,” he says. “All three of the main characters are bad with elements of weird and good! Tae-goo’s character is like a weed. He does all kinds of things by fair means or foul in order to survive in the vast, desolate Manchurain plains in the chaotic times. But he is not bleak in human nature. He has his own unique feelings and attachments to people but lives like a die-hard weed in order to survive. He appears comedic but he is the most desperate character out of the three.”

As well as being a study of the best and worst traits of the human character, The Good, The Bad, The Weird is at its heart a rollicking action adventure – which meant that all of the cast had to do quite a lot of stunt work. For Lee Byung-hun, it was a novel experience. “It was fun and scary,” the actor laughs. “My palms were literally soaked with sweat as I waited for the ready sign. I was tense and exited. When my horse would start running faster and faster, I thought I could fall down and die any minute. But when the OK sign fell and I watched the visuals on the monitor, I felt incredibly satisfied and pround beyond words”

The Good, The Bad, The Weird is released on DVD and Blu-ray on June 15 from Icon Home Entertainment.

You can see three clips from the film below, and also read the review by clicking on the link.

Read The Good, The Bad, The Weird Review