screenings at the Toronto International Film Festival, Hawaii International Film Festival, Sitges Film Festival, Chicago International Film Festival, and the London Film Festival. American distribution rights were acquired by IFC Films, who released it in theaters on a limited basis on April 23, 2010. The Good, the Bad, the Weird received generally positive reviews. Review aggregating website Rotten Tomatoes reported that 84% of 60 sampled critics gave the film positive reviews and that it got a rating average of 7.2 out of 10 stating that "Whilst never taking itself too seriously, this riotous and rollicking Sergio Leone-inspired Korean Western is serious fun." On Metacritic, it received generally favorable reviews with a total score of 69. Variety said that "East meets West meets East again, with palate-tingling results, in 'The Good the Bad the Weird', a kimchi Western that draws shamelessly on its spaghetti forebears but remains utterly, bracingly Korean" awarding the film 3.5 out of 5 stars. The A.V. Club gave it a B+ saying that "The story’s many advances and reversals can be hard to follow at times, but this isn’t really a movie where plot is paramount. Everything boils down to the action, and what that action means". The New York Post gave it a four star rating out of five stating that "The Good, the Bad, the Weird may owe a lot to other films but it is always fresh and never boring". Empire magazine gave it a three star rating out of five commenting that "A tangled narrative and damp -squib ending detract from an otherwise joyous Spaghetti Eastern Western." Time Out critic Tom Huddlestone stated that "This is filmmaking as rodeo ride: bruising and ultimately pointless, but thrilling as hell while it lasts" and awarded the film four out of five stars. The Hollywood Reporter gave it a positive review declaring the film "a jaunty, happy-go-lucky adventure that packs a fistful of dynamite in the spectacular showdown." On the other hand, there were criticism directed towards the excessive violence and the simplicity of the script. In particular, the Village Voices Nicolas Rapold mentioned that "Kim's filmmaking is generally cartoonish in a bad sense, as he squanders his set pieces, flashbacks, and other attention-getting with sometimes downright wretched staging" while The Boston Globe wrote that the film "goes for shallow pop instead of narrative depth. It's a lot of fun before it wears you out, and