In short: Sukiyaki Western Django (2007)

A stranger comes to the Old Western town of Nevada (at least that's what the subtitles tell us the Japanese town sign says). He is as Japanese as everyone around him, but do not be afraid, person too dumb to read sub-titles! He and everyone else (even the cameoing Quentin Tarantino) speaks English, sort of. Most of the time it's even comprehensible.

Nevada the town has a problem, well make that two problems, in form of two hostile clans, the Genji (aka "The Red") and the Heitei (aka "The White"), both graced with leaders madder than the proverbial hatter, both with an unhealthy love for color-coded Western/Mad Max chic. These groups are both on the lookout for a legendary gold treasure that is said to be hidden somewhere in the area.

But we all know what happens when a lone stranger rides into a town like this, so there's no need for me to tell you.

 

I don't know how Takashi Miike does this stuff, but he does. What should by all rights be a silly, badly tied together knot of clichés, played by actors who had to learn their dialogue phonetically, turns out to be one of Miike's best films.

Sukiyaki Western Django is as much a homage to the Italian Western as it is a loving parody (sometimes even critique) of its clichés and blind spots. It is one of the films that shows so much love for its chosen genre one has to have a heart of stone not to love the film back for it. Every element of the films of the two Sergios (Leone and Corbucci) is lovingly reproduced, sometimes to be twisted, sometimes to be broken and sometimes to be laughed at; often all three things at once. Amazingly, most of those elements suddenly feel new and vibrant again when they are used by someone from a very different culture than they initially came from. In this way, Miike does with the Italian Western what the Italian Western did with the American Western; looking at things from a perspective they haven't been looked at from in quite this way (the influence Chanbara and Italian Western had on each other notwithstanding).

Of course the film is also extremely silly and loose, while still keeping more coherence than Miike sometimes bothers with.

One of the most loveable aspects of Miike's work for me has always been his ability to be at once absurd, gruesome, silly, cliched and emotionally poignant; Sukiyaki Western Django is no exception.

Plus, there's lots of shooting, you know.

 

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