Kim Ji-woon’s “kimchi western” is all about style as substance.

The film always returns to its central violent themes with a crackling, harrowing intensity.

If I had to sum up the movie in one sentence, I would describe it as a “PBS western directed by Quentin Tarantino as a soap opera.”

One wonders if this is the greatest western ever made.

All in all, a so-called classic that misses out on all of the aspects that make a classic western.

It’s that age-old argument; is it the world’s violence that corrupts man, or does man’s violence corrupt the world?

The cast was an excellent choice, and set the tone for the 1960s, which became an incredible decade for westerns.