Out of Competition: “The Good, the Bad, the Weird” by Jee-woon Kim

Presented out of Competition, The Good, the Bad, the Weird brings Korean director Jee-woon Kim to the Festival de Cannes for the second time. In 2005, he was invited to show the film noir A Bittersweet Life (also out of Competition). His latest feature is a radical departure from the noir genre. As the title indicates, it is a frontier movie, set in wild 1930s Manchuria.

“It’s always cinematic moments that give me an idea for the film I want to make,” Kim admits. “In westerns, it’s the north wind blowing in the desert, the gun-toting man, walking alone, the sudden burst of gunfire… These recurring clichés never fail to charm me. After making A Bittersweet Life, I did some traveling, and I discovered the expansive horizons and endless skies of Manchuria. When the Japanese occupied it in the 1930s, it was undoubtedly a frontier for fortune-seekers who had no other choice than to leave their native country.”

The plot revolves around three characters: the Weird, who steals a treasure map from a high-ranking Japanese official; the Bad, the best hitman in the land, hired to get it back; and the Good, striving to find whoever has the map in his possession, in order to pocket the reward. Only one will achieve his goal – but first, he must succeed in annihilating the Japanese army occupying Manchuria, the Chinese hoodlums, the Korean gangsters – and the two others.

Jee-woon Kim added, “The film tells the story of three men who carry their native land in their hearts, though they are driven by instinct to go to the edge of the desert. I don’t want my heroes to be labeled Good, Bad, and Weird, because the characters keep changing, depending on the situation. They can all be good, bad, or weird, by turns. At the time, Manchuria was being fought over by the great powers. It was made up of a variety of cultures who shared the territory, taking the good and bad together, in this lawless chaos. I had fun violating the laws of the western in this hostile environment. Now I want to share the pleasure of seeing the chase scenes between these three men pursuing their dreams.”