The Good, the Bad, the Weird 4K UHD review

Arrow Video

4K UHD Release: September 30, 2025

Video: 2.35:1/2160p (HDR10/Dolby Vision)/Color

Audio: Korean/Mandarin DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1

Subtitles: English SDH

Run Time: 129:47 (international cut), 135:18 (Korean cut)

Director: Kim Jee-woon

In the 1930s, three gun-toting Koreans converge on a train with different objectives, but, after an explosive altercation, they leave it with the same goal: track down a map leading to an unfathomable treasure. The 'Good' is bounty hunter Park Dowon (Jung Woo-sung), who is chasing down the 'Bad', a ruthless bandit named Park Chang-yi (Lee Byung-hun), rumored to be the notorious 'Finger Cutter'. Meanwhile, wily thief Yoon Tae-goo (Song Kang-ho), the 'Weird', is on the hunt for anything he can get his hands on. (From Arrow’s official synopsis)

At the close of the 1990s, South Korean cinema, television, and K-Pop music made a splash in the Western world. This era is generally referred to as the Korean Wave (K-Wave) or Hánliú. Still speaking generally, North American film fans took early notice of the area’s renaissance in filmmaking, either around the international releases of Kang Je-gyu’s spy thriller Shiri (1999) or  Kwak Jae-yong's romantic comedy My Sassy Girl (2001). The rest of us caught up quickly after, when unprecedented word-of-mouth propelled Park Chan-wook’s Oldboy (2003) into the pop culture stratosphere. Kang Je-gyu's war epic Taegukgi (aka: Taegukgi: The Brotherhood of War, 2004) solidified the region’s status the following year, opening the door for wider releases of Ryoo Seung-wan’s Crying Fist (2005), Kim Jee-woon’s A Bittersweet Life (2005), and Bong Joon-ho’s The Host (2006).

Park, Bong, and Kim were sort of the faces of the movement and all three released English language debuts in 2013 – Park with Stoker (2013), Bong with Snowpiercer (2013), and Kim with the aging Arnold Schwarzenegger vehicle The Last Stand (2013). In the years after, Bong and Park’s influence expanded with the former earning multiple Oscars for Parasite (2019) and the latter making two English language prestige TV miniseries, Little Drummer Girl (2018) and The Sympathizer (2024). Kim’s Hollywood career stalled, but his reputation in Asia endured, thanks in part to the massive scale, all-star western that got him the Last Stand gig in the first place – The Good, the Bad, the Weird (2008).South Korea got a late start in filmmaking due to endless wars in the region, however, they were essentially occupied by US forces between 1945 & ‘48, so American pop culture influences, including western movies, became relevant. A small collection of films, sometimes referred to as Manchurian westerns, though I prefer ‘kimchi western’ myself, appeared and applied the conventions of the Hollywood western to Korean-set historical dramas and adventures. These included Lee Man-hee’s Break Up The Chain (1971), Shin Sang-ok’s The Homeless Wanderer (1968 – a semi-remake of Shane), Ahn Ki-nam’s Outlaw on a Donkey (1970), and Seok-jun Jang’s Jijiharu's Black Sun (1971)*.

Kim’s greatest talent is his eye for tight, precision action. His work is, on average, every bit as quirky as Park or Bong’s, but less subversive. He tends to embrace and enhance genre, rather than twisting it into something nearly unrecognizable. A Tale of Two Sisters (2003) is every inch a ghost story, A Bittersweet Life is a textbook gangster movie, and The Good, the Bad, the Weird is precisely what we’d expect from a western action film released during the ‘00s. It fits easily alongside James Mangold’s 3:10 to Yuma (2007) and Jan Kounen’s Blueberry (aka: The Renegade, 2004), as well as some of the overloaded studio westerns of the 2010s, like Gore Verbinski’s The Lone Ranger (2014) and Antoine Fuqua’s Magnificent Seven remake (2016).

The Good, The Bad, The Weird is also, as the title indicates, an homage to Sergio Leone’s The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly (Italian: Il buono, il brutto, il cattivo, 1966), though it doesn’t really resemble a ‘60s Italian western. What it does look like is the other hyper-stylized Asian neo-westerns of the new millenium, like Takashi Miike’s Sukiyaki Western Django (2007), Chalerm Wongpim’s Dynamite Warrior (2006), Zhang Yimou’s A Woman, a Gun and a Noodle Shop (2009), and Wisit Sasanatieng’s Tears of the Black Tiger (2000). Its retro-modernism was extremely hip at the time, grew to look dated a decade later, and now, closing in on another decade later, represents the era’s unique charms.

One way it does resemble Leone’s work is its unabashedly excessive scope. Following the international popularity of his first two westerns, The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly was furnished with a huge budget, which was then dwarfed when his next two westerns, Once Upon a Time in the West (Italian: C'era una volta il West, 1968) and Duck, You Sucker! (Italian: Giù la testa, 1971), were made with Hollywood studio co-funding. Just like Leone (not to mention Gore Verbinski and Antoine Fuqua), Kim can handle the technical aspects of big action, but his story, characters, and pacing are lost in his obligation to scale. Every scene is a little too long and the epic set-pieces become overwhelming and monotonous. Too much of a good thing? Perhaps. Definitely too much of something.

But how about that cast? The Good, The Bad, The Weird’s blockbuster status extends to megastars Jung Woo-sung, Lee Byung-hun, and Song Kang-ho. The latter two actors have even become recognizable outside of Korea, due to Lee’s work on Red (2008) and Squid Game (2017) and Song’s appearances in Snowpiercer and Parasite (2019). It’s like the equivalent of The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly starring Steve McQueen, Lee Marvin, and James Garner, instead of Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef, and Eli Wallach (my point being that Eastwood and Van Cleef were basically B-level TV actors at best in 1966). 

* For the record, I haven’t seen any of these films (they aren’t available in English, from what I’ve found), so I may be overestimating how western-like some of them are.

Video

The Good, the Bad, the Weird was released on US DVD and Blu-ray from MPI, which was, unfortunately, interlaced, rather than progressive 1080 HD. That disc also only included the shorter international version of the film, not the full Korean cut. Arrow produced their first Blu-ray and a 4K UHD edition for sale in the UK in December of last year with five seconds of footage cut for animal cruelty reasons (referencing an outdated horse stunt). This North American disc includes both the international and Korean versions without any edits. Note that the images on this page are taken from a streaming version and are only here for editorial purposes.

This 2.35:1, 2160p transfer is a big improvement on most levels. The extra resolution draws out fine detail from the baroque sets and costumes, the punchy palette no longer has blocking issues, and the HDR/Dolby Vision boost helps differentiate elements in the high contrast shadows. Unfortunately, everything is oversharpened, leading to thin, but notable haloes around harder edges. This might be partially the fault of the harsh contrast and heavy color saturation that Kim and cinematographer Lee Mo-gae employ throughout the film.

The previous Blu-ray really struggled with noise and haloes, so my guess is that this is an uncompressed version of CJ Entertainment’s original scan, not a new restoration. Given all of the digital grading, I’m not sure the original 35mm footage would’ve been workable anyway. If my guess is right, there isn’t much room for improvement.

Audio

The Good, The Bad, The Weird is presented in its original Korean and uncompressed DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1. This is a kitchen sink type mix that engages every channel and plays with extreme dynamic ranges. There are no distortion issues, drop-outs, or similar problems to report. The score is credited to heavy metal and techno musician turned film composer Dalpalan (aka: Kang Ki-young) and Jang Young-gyu, who had just collaborated on Bittersweet Life. The music pays homage to Ennio Morricone with raggedy electric guitars and Spanish horns, infusing it with techno drums, Greek-inspired melodies, and big band horns when necessary.

The big chase across the desert recreates Santa Esmeralda’s flamenco version of “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood,” which had also appeared on the Kill Bill Vol. 1 soundtrack in 2003.

Extras

Disc 1 (4K UHD)

• Commentary with Kim Jee-woon and actors Song Kang-Ho, Lee Byung-Hun, and Jung Woo-Sung (international cut) – This is the original 2009 Blu-ray track in Korean with English subtitles. The tone is a bit low energy, but the information is pretty good. It’s especially nice getting the actors’ perspective.

• Commentary with Pierce Conran and James Marsh (international version) – A new, Arrow exclusive track featuring Korean film expert Conran and critic Marsh, who explore the making of The Good, The Bad, The Weird, its connections to other films and genres, the careers of the cast & crew, and the historical contexts of the film’s setting and time period. I found the section about Manchurian/kimchi westerns the most valuable, because there isn’t a lot of good information out there on the subject (though Conran has to admit that he has also been unable to see most of them).

• Commentary with Kim Jee-woon, cinematographer Lee Mo-gae, lighting director Oh Seung-chul, and art director Cho Hwa-sung (Korean cut) – A second, more technically-minded track. This feels more like a proper director’s commentary with the added value of Lee, Oh, and Cho’s contributions.

• 2024 Introduction by Kim Jee-woon (1:29, HD)

Disc 2 (Blu-ray)

• Corralling Chaos in the Desert (25:56, HD) – Director Kim Jee-woon reflects on working with the cast, directing challenges, storytelling themes, the value of working on location, his use of color throughout his career, lifting “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood” from Kill Bill, and the films that inspired him, including, obviously, the Leone films, but also the Trinity movies (1970, ‘71), Mad Max (a pretty obvious influence on the desert chase), and Break Up The Chain (which is also discussed in the commentary tracks).

• Dusty Dust-ups and Sweaty Saddles (14:51, HD) – Martial arts/action coordinator Jung Doo-hong talks about behind-the-scenes challenges, working with Kim, drawing inspiration from Hollywood and Italian westerns, and the genuine dangers of the stunts, which ended up costing another coordinator, Ji Joong-hyun, his life.

Archival extras:

• Running Fast (90:26, SD) – A feature-length making-of documentary that includes raw on-set footage and filmmaker interviews.

• The Good, the Bad, the Weird and the Vicious (18:55, SD) – A very silly promotional roundtable with Kim, Jung Woo-sung, Lee Byung-hun, and Song Kang-ho.

• Analogue (13:36, SD) – An EPK covering cinematography, logistics, and stunts.

• Space (10:29, SD) – A look at the production design with Cho Hwa-sung.

• Sound (10:56, SD) – Chio Tae-Young discusses sound design/production.

• Movie/storyboards comparison (14:15 SD) – This section also includes digital effects before & after, and digital previz footage.

• Behind the scenes promo (15:03, SD)

• Making-of EPK #1 (3:23, SD)

• Making-of EPK #2 (1:03, SD)

• Interviews:

  • Kim Jee-woon (3:15, SD)

  • Song Kang-ho (2:42, SD)

  • Lee Byung-hun (2:58, SD)

  • Jung Woo-sung (2:47, SD)

• Cannes highlight reel (3:02)

• Deleted scenes (43:55, SD) – With optional commentary from Kim Jee-woon

• Alternate scene music (0:47) – With forced commentary Kim Jee-woon

• Five alternate endings (1:52, 1:52, 1:52, 1:52, 11:49)

• Korean, international, US, and UK trailers

• Image gallery

The images on this page are taken from a 1080p streaming version – NOT the newly remastered 4K UHD – and sized for the page. Larger versions can be viewed by right/cmd-clicking each side of the sliders. Note that there will be some JPG compression.