Sukiyaki Western Django
Directed by: Takashi Miike
Written by: Takashi Miike and Masa Nakamura
Starring: Hideaki Ito, Masanobu Ando, Yusuke Iseya, Kaori Momoi, Quentin Tarantino

If you’re fan of both westerns and samurai films, then you’re probably well aware that the two genres have a history of influencing each other. To be more specific, ’60s westerns borrowed a lot of elements from the samurai films of the ’50s, which in turn cribbed notes from the classical era westerns in the ’40s. It’s easy to see that they often deal with similar characters and themes, so when Japanese auteur Takaski Miike decided to create his own modern mash-up of spaghetti westerns and samurai flicks, it seemed like an appropriate and potent blend of styles.

Truth be told, I wasn’t really sure what I was getting into with Sukiyaki Western Django, and now that I’ve seen it, I’m still not quite sure what I got. It certainly delivers on the promise of paying homage to some of the movies and directors that Miike loves. However, as a whole, I can’t say it really did much for me. Outside of some interesting visuals, the film is tedious and borderline incomprehensible, and feels like some sort of inside joke that I just didn’t get.

The story is essentially a remake of Sergio Corbucci’s Django but transplanted to feudal Japan, where a mysterious gunman comes to town and finds two clans at war with each other for control of a legendary treasure. Both sides vie for his loyalty, but he ultimately has more to gain from playing them off against each other instead. Needless to say, a bloodbath ensues.

Takashi Miike is recognized by some as the father of torture porn, having directed such horror flicks as Audition and Ichi The Killer, and it’s no surprise that there’s a fair amount of blood and gore here. As far as action goes, however, the movie is hit and miss. There are definitely some Sergio Leone-influenced stand-offs and epic gunfights, but also a lot of modern Asian action tricks and CG bullet time stuff that doesn’t really mesh all that well together. The battle royale near the end with the gatling gun, and the one-on-one revolver vs sword showdown were somewhat exciting, but not enough to make up for the rest of the movie.

Now I don’t always think it’s fair to criticize a foreign film for having non-English actors stumble through English dialogue, but in this case, it was clearly a stylistic decision by Miike and I think it was probably a mistake. It is very hard to follow what is being said because many of the actors are simply speaking phonetically (even Miike himself doesn’t speak English), and although it is initially amusing, it really starts to drive you nuts after a while. It also doesn’t help that the dialogue itself is somewhat nonsensical at times, but thankfully there are English subtitles (they don’t seem to be enabled by default, which is weird because I believe they were included with the theatrical version of the film).

While the involvement of Quentin Tarantino no doubt helped raise the profile of this movie, Tarantino fans will probably be disappointed to find out that his role is actually rather small. Trust me though… once you hear him attempt to adopt a Japanese accent speaking broken English, you’ll be glad he’s not on screen for longer than 10 minutes or so. Even though Tarantino’s involvement is pretty limited, the movie does seem like another one of his patented retro b-movie tributes. Heck, there’s even a weird animated interlude that comes out of nowhere. Perhaps if Tarantino had been on-board as an actual producer, he might have been able to inject a little more fun into the film (Kill Bill Vol. 1 and 2, while not exactly the same thing, are so much more enjoyable to watch than this).

For me, the one redeeming aspect of this movie was the visuals. The oversaturated flashbacks have a really vibrant look to them, and the highlighted reds pop within the rest of the sepia-toned footage. The painted backdrops were a cool touch, and for the most part the costume designs are a creative mix of old and new styles. When all these elements come together on screen, it makes for some amazing imagery. During some of the film’s more epic moments I was reminded of some of the recent films by Zhang Yimou like House of Flying Daggers or Curse of the Golden Flower.

Sukiyaki Western Django is definitely a movie that is tailor-made for a very specific audience, and if you’re a part of that audience, you may have a blast with it. It played as part of the Midnight Madness program at TIFF last year, and I can only assume that it went over like gangbusters there. Outside of that crowd and that atmosphere, however, there’s a good chance this movie will only serve to test your patience. Still, if you’re the type who seeks out oddball foreign films, this unique pastiche of genres and sensibilities might be just what you’re looking for.

Extras on the Blu-ray release include deleted scenes, a “making of” featurette that runs nearly an hour long, and a digital copy for portable media devices. — Sean

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Recommended If You Like: A Fistful of Dollars, Django, House of Flying Daggers, Kill Bill