Sukiyaki Western Django

How's this for original? Take a spaghetti western, and place it in Japan, and add the element of the cowboys carrying not only guns, but swords and crossbows as well. Now you no longer have a spaghetti western, but a sukiyaki western. The story is classic western stuff too, a town gets over run by two rival gangs, a lone gunman without a name comes into town and shakes things up, the presence of a legendary gunslinger remains unseen until things get messy, violence ensues, hero rides off into the sunset. It has all the elements of classic westerns, but the fact that it's set in Japan makes you feel like you've never seen it before. To help give you a better idea, the background looks like a Samurai movie, but the actors are clearly dressed as cowboys, but whats more amazing about the whole thing is it just fits. Nothing seems out of place or takes you out of the movie when everything about it should. This goes to the credit of the direction of Japan's most controversial director Takeshi Miike. The fast-paced action is well staged on a set that borrows from both western and samurai traditions; Miike mixes both good old gunplay and martial arts swordplay, which intermingle cohesively until the last fight is over. Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of Miike’s western is his decision to use a Japanese cast to speak English, it’s a peculiar choice that at first feels like a novelty, only to fade into the film’s absorbing environment. Sukiyaki Western Django feels very much like a genuine western, and with it Miike demonstrates his mastery of working a genre film until it becomes a creation of his very own.

3 out of 5

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one luv, Toinne