Pretty Good

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Viewed on DVD. Cinematography/lighting = seven (7) stars; editing/continuity = four (4) stars; translation = one (1) star. Director Takashi Miike delivers an ambiguous tale of Samurai Gun Slingers (or is it Cowboy Sword Swingers?) in the blood thirsty style of Quentin Tarantino who shows up in bookend cameo appearances (see below). Miike's fantasy film crams virtually every motion-picture myth from the Italian brand of the American Old West into the scenario pot (including the music) plus some clever original variations such as: a shootout at high (give or take) noon that occurs during a snow storm; Yakuza ancestors in the form of rival red and white town gangs who, of course, wear only red or white, respectively (to help the viewer determine which side a stunt actor is now on?); Samurai sword moves that deflect six-gun bullets; a hand-held Gatling gun with two-foot clip (for holding thousands of rounds?); a lynching Torii gate at the edge of town (instead of a lone leafless tree); the usual cluttered boot hill but with both above and below ground "burials"; saloon dancing entertainment that substitutes floor slithering for high kicking; and gold that looks freshly minted instead of freshly mined (so there's no mistaking it for fool's gold?). Acting is not so great and may have been negatively impacted by requiring all players to their deliver lines entirely in English (there is no voice-acting dubbing). Actresses and actors speak "high English" rather than "cowboy lingo," but retain the usual rising and falling intonations spoken by native Japanese (with a sentence-ending "ne" occasionally slipping out!). Stunt actors are kept busy dying many, many times as either Red Gang or White Gang members. Costumes are especially interesting. No one wears a white hat, since there are no "good guys" (some members of the Red Gang do wear white Hachimaki (headbands), though). These Yakuza fore runners also care a lot about there appearances, since their costumes always look brand new (including their baseball jackets!) as do their vast assortment of firearms and leather accessories (a gun collector's dream!). Special effects are modest but very well done. Editing and continuity are not quite there. The film is too long and sags when the satire hits a dry spot. Scenes often switch back and forth between sunshine, heavy (real not movie) rain, and snow (a lot of it). There is too much reliance on voice-over expository to fill in the gaps. Cinematography (wide screen, color) and scene lighting are fine. Surround-sound field is OK, but seems under used. Interior set used for the opening scenes features Tarantino as a gun fighter reacting to especially spicy sukiyaki in front of a painted back drop that includes the Japanese flag (way before it was adopted?) and Mount Fuji (closing interior scenes features an ancient Tarantino as a gun-shop proprietor zipping around in a racing wheel chair!). Some signs (including the town's name) are only partially translated. The English subtitle menu is confusing (since the film has only English dialog). (These subtitles are meant for the hard of hearing.) Credits are not translated which seems to be an especially disrespectful action by the film's director/producers directed against all those who helped to make this English-language movie possible! WILLIAM FLANIGAN, PhD.

Trust Japanese director Takeshi Miike to dream up something as outrageously funny, wicked and dramatic such as Sukiyaki Western Django, his take on what a Japanese Western would look and feel like, encapsulating genre themes, character motivations, and action done to violent perfection. Fans of Westerns will definitely not want to miss this, just as how Thai director Wisit Sasanatieng had taken the genre and given it a Thai spin, Miike does the same for this film in a daring attempt to weave something unique into his vastly varied filmography.Such is Miike's clout that he had gotten Quentin Tarantino to play a character with different outlooks, in an introductory scene that resembled the color saturated scenarios in Sasanatieng's Tears of the Black Tiger. This scene alone will set the tone for the film, in being amusing in the black humour sense, filled with impossible action amped up for entertainment sake, and a host of characters you'd want to know more of. Like any classic Westerns, it then progressed some years later, with a mysterious, skilled gunslinger (Hideaki Ito) riding into a town to decide to which clan should he offer his skills to, the Reds or the Whites, each needing resource to track down the location of rumoured treasure in the land.It's like the good the bad and the ugly, where the only good guy you know is the skilled gunslinger, with his introduction already showcasing what he's capable of. We learn more about the backstories of both clans and their leaders, and from then on the gunslinger's allegiance turn to focus on Shizuka (Yoshino Kimura) the widow, the daughter in law of Ruriko (Kaori Momoi) where the latter turns out to be more than who she's willing to tell. Taking an interest, the Gunslinger hatches a quick plot to rid the land of its scourge, which culminates in a crazy all out gun battle where winner takes all.The cast is filled with recognizable faces from contemporary Japanese cinema, where besides those already mentioned, Teruyuki Kagawa stars as the irreverent Sheriff who has his own agenda, and I'm sure is in a role that's quite unreal as the character who just refuses to die. Yoshino Kimura also deserves special mention in her role as the temptress out for revenge but not sure how, and has this really strange dance to perform midway through the film. Hideaki Ito oozes machismo as the classic hero who talks less and lets his skills impose his will, and just about everyone puts in double the effort to ensure that their English enunciation is as perfect as can be, with the benchmark I used was whether they were comprehensible even with the subtitles turned off.It's pretty violent but in the cartoony sort of way, heavily relying on special and practical effects to make you feel every bullet spinning in the air, every round that impacts the body, and the aftermath damage caused, which I mentioned hovers in quite an unreal manner which is likely played out just for laughs. Action is carefully crafted to avoid repetition, though with what's inherent with the genre you do occasionally feel for anyone to dispatch another with less theatrics. But this is Sukiyaki Western Django, and part of the fun is to see how the tried and tested formula got spun on its head. Not quite memorable, but a fun ride nonetheless.

Sukiyaki Western Django essentially takes Kurosawa's Yojimbo (forrunner to the spaghetti Western) and make it into an exploitation film. I guess it's no wonder then that Quentin Tarantino would be drawn to such a film. In this hybrid flick, scene one features Tarantino taking on three Japanese gun slingers in what intentionally look like a b-movie set piece of the desert. (The sun distinctly hangs from a wire, ha ha). With this scene, the movie will either have your full attention, or it will have you making for the exit, but it's a good indicator that something eccentric is going to follow.It is for the best that Sukiyaki Western Django does not take itself seriously. Despite being Tarantino's cup of tea, somehow he feels out of place. It is not because he is the only American on screen, but rather because the overwrought performance quality of everyone else actually make him look talented. His satire is more subtle, while everyone else acts like they are in a Kabuki theatre production. The original Yojimbo, didn't actually have much of a plot, but by stretching it out, Kurosawa was able to give it a more solid body, something which unfortunately is not duplicated here. Sukiyaki Western Django is short and superficial, not giving the audience much of a chance to grow into the characters. This is one of those movies that makes you wanna laugh at the people on screen. You don't end up caring who lives or dies, but the fashion in which they do so is effectively entertaining.The gun play in this movie is the product of artistic creativity and visual humour, with a bit of slapstick. Watching a kataka split a speeding bullet in two (in slow motion) is far more pleasurable than obnoxious. Even some of the more aesthetically romantic qualities of the movie are funny. In the climax, it starts to snow (in very Asian cinematic fashion) covering the ground white in five seconds, I was laughing. Sometimes when people gets shot, feathers gets spilled in the place of blood. Who would have thought that up?What Sukiyaki Western Django needs more than anything is a better substance to go with the style. This film, which is superficially amusing, can be equally annoying sometimes on account of scrappy dialogue and acting. It is reasonably effective for it's genre, but there are better examples which I would recommend before this

OK not to death (i cant be reviewing this from Hades) but certainly to sleep. When i rent this film i knew already that it wasn't a standard western. I expected a highly stylised movie with surrealistic elements and perhaps humour. Well none of those happened at least in the right way. I liked the idea of a Japanese influenced western. No problem with that. The language also didn't annoyed me that much since all the films in Greece have subtitles. It rather was on the good side of weirdness of this film.The problem was with the plot. There wasn't any!! At least one that made sense! A gunslinger walks in a village torn between two gangs searching for gold. Thats it! Nothing more! Its absolutely childish and SLLLLLLLOW. OK you may think that many fun films have week plot which they match with great action. Well not here people.. The action shots are nothing special and many times they don't even show the result of the action. There is not even the extra gore element present, to spice things up. The performances had nothing special. Including Tarantino who propably was there just to have fun and get some bucks also. I was thinking to see this in cinema, but thank god i had no time then. I rent it so they only fooled me in losing 2 euros. I fell asleep for 10min while watching it (wasnt even tired that day) and i didn't got back to see what i missed. That says a lot.