Web-Exclusive Review: Sukiyaki Western Django
Posted by Rob Ortenzi on 08-Sep-08 @ 11:04 AM
ACTIONSukiyaki Western Django (FIRST LOOK INTERNATIONAL) STARS > Hideaki Ito, Koichi Sato, Yusuke Iseya, Kaori Momoi, Yoshino Kimura, Quentin Tarantino DIRECTOR > Takashi Miike OPENS > September 12 RATING > 3/5 On paper, the concept is borderline ridiculous: An homage to Sergio Corbucci's 1966 spaghetti western Django (and its myriad rip-offs) featuring a Japanese cast speaking phonetic English and being corralled by a director best known for his ultra-graphic torture scenes. Only Takashi Miike, the man behind the gore-drenched thrillers Audition (1999) and Ichi The Killer (2001), could even pretend to pull it off, but a director of Miike's caliber doesn't have to fake a thing. In his re-imagining of Django, Miike invokes the archetype of the wandering gunslinger (played here by Hideaki Ito), places him between the crosshairs of two warring clans (led by Koichi Sato and Yusuke Iseya), and then throws in the obligatory femme fatale (Yoshino Kimura) and hidden treasure to enhance the drama. Of course it's only appropriate that Miike enlist Quentin Tarantino to play a mythic gunman named Ringo, the man who sets Sukiyaki's plot in motion via the film's painted-set prologue: After all, it was the original Django that inspired the infamous "ear-cutting scene" in Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs. Anyone who's seen a spaghetti western (or "macaroni western" as the Japanese apparently call them) of the Corbucci or Leone ilk knows the drill by now: Wide-angle showdowns at high noon, sweat glistening on the brows of the principals, blazing saddles, blood feuds, horse tumbles, barroom brawls, etc. Only Miike's version boasts samurai swords alongside six-shooters and Gatling guns (stored in a coffin, a direct reference to the original Django), heavy doses of slapstick comedy, and highly stylized anachronisms (Iseya's character rocks a labret piercing). Oh, and the dazzling high-noon showdown takes place in a snowstorm. Not to mention the fact that the cast's phonetic English is somehow even more surreal than your standard shitty kung fu overdub. All of which makes for highly satisfying mixed-genre entertainment, a kind of Kurosawa-meets-Kung Fu Hustle in cowboy hats and dusters. --J. Bennett |
