Movie Review – Sukiyaki Western Django

Movie Review – Sukiyaki Western Django

IMDB LINK: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0906665/
Genre: Western/Action
Year: 2007

Cast: Hideaki Ito, Masanobu Ando, Koichi Sato, Kaori Momoi, Yusuke Iseya, Renji Ishibashi, Yoshino Kimura
Director: Takashi Miike
Writers: Takashi Miike & Masa Nakamura
Produced by: Toshiaki Nakazawa, Masato Ôsaki, Nobuyuki Tohya
Composer: Kôji Endô

Honorable Mentions:
Production Design: Takashi Sasaki
Art Direction: Nao Sasaki, Takahisa Taguchi
Costume Design: Michiko Kitamura

Runtime: 121 min

Review by Lukas Strautins.

After watching a short clip and the trailer for Sukiyaki Western Django, I was super excited to see it. Knowing that Quentin Tarantino, Guillermo Del Toro and Eli Roth spoke so highly of its director Takashi Miike was just about enough of a reason in itself to cast my attention to this film – not to mention I love a good old-skool style Japanese flick.

Set in an age where history and present meld seamlessly into one with technology and dress sense in a similar style to what Wild Wild West did with their technology, Sukiyaki Western Django revolves around the spaghetti western tale of a newly stylized version of A Fistful Of Dollars.
A lone gunman (Hideaki Ito) struts into a town plagued by two gangs of rivalling bandits, the Heike crew in red led by the trigger-happy Kiyomori (Koichi Sato) and the Genji crew in white, led by ‘looking-for-a-worthy-adversary’ Yoshitsune (Yusuke Iseya). Having heard word of a great treasure legend to reside somewhere in the town, the gangs have set up shop for some time before our wandering hero enters stage left.

If you thought A Fistful of Dollars was a great original story, I’ll beat you to death! In what almost seems like, in my opinion, a spit in the face to Sergio Leone, director Takashi Miike takes back ownership for Japan this great story that originally stemmed from Akira Kurosawa’s Yojimbo – a Samurai masterpiece, and a story stolen by Leone.
I love the fact that Miike has taken Leones version and flipped it on its back, giving the film more meaning and camaraderie it deserves by essentially doing a jap-western remake of Yojimbo. I mean, the cornerstone scene of the gunman showing his skills to begin with in the town square was shot twenty times better (and more similar to Kurosawa’s style, especially the opening intro sequence) than Leones lame attempt. I’m sorry, but I hate when ideas are stolen and credit is taken where credit is not due (though I am a massive hypocrite here re: Star Wars ;D)

Directly behind the lens stands Toyomichi Kurita, an incredibly experienced and talented cinematographer with a more well-known project already under his belt with Waiting to Exhale. The awe-inspiring shots and superb art direction are simply enough to keep you watching, even if the accents don’t, which bring me to the downfalls of this fun filled shoot-em-up.

First of all, I can’t stress enough how beautifully this film has been made. But the decision to have acted in English was a major killer for it. It’s quite obvious that 80% of these actors cannot or have never spoken English before, so many important lines of text with deep meaning are completely botched up by a Japanese guy stressing the wrong words in a sentence. It’s so distracting in fact, it almost made me want to mentally switch off (which i must admit i did after a while, then just enjoyed the stimulating visuals). If the film had been made in Japanese, I’d probably give it a 10 out of 10, that way seeing as I don’t understand any Japanese, if they got it wrong I wouldn’t have known anyway.
Still, all the actors gave phenomenal performances, giving the characters such charismatic life, like the bumbling idiot of a sheriff played wonderfully by Teruyuki Kagawa, you’d be forgiven to almost side with the bad guys. One qualm might be Hideaki Ito’s slightly wooden performance.

Quentin Tarantino HAS to have been involved creatively, even though never credited. So much of the film seems his style, especially the temptress dance by Yoshino Kimura which screams Selma Hayak in From Dusk Til Dawn (or was that in the Rodriguez half ;D). I loved the idea of QT playing a cameo, though he takes his character way OTT and is a real let down. Shame really. Considering Miike cameo’d in Hostel, QT probably could have returned the favour a bit better.

All in all, if you love Akira Kurosawa films, highly stylized grit flicks like Rodriguez and the passion and action of Hero and Crouching Tiger, check this one out! Unmissable if you can get past the English language 🙂

Likes:

• Beautifully dressed sets and stunning visuals
• Great action
• Witty script writing
• Great acting (for the most part)
• Quentin Tarantino cameo

Dislikes:

• English language used as main
• Maybe a touch too long
• Quentin Tarantino cameo

Lukas gives 3.5/5 Sprockets