Sukiyaki Western Django

Original title: Sukiyaki Western Django
Country: Japan
Genre: Action, Western
Year: 2007
IMDB Rating: 7.4/10 (307 votes)
Runtime: 121 min
Language: English
Company: Dentsu Productions Ltd., Geneon Entertainment, Sedic, Sony Pictures Entertainment (Japan), TV Asahi, Toei Company

It's been hundreds of years since the Battle of Dannoura, yet the Genji (Minamoto) and Heiki (Taira) clans are still feuding. After centuries of war, the rival clans have been reduced to little more than scrappy gangs of ill-kempt stragglers. The Heike led by hot-tempered Kiyomori and the Genji led by criminally cool Yoshitsune both catch wind that there's gold to be found in the small, remote town of Yuta. Showdown in little Yuta is inevitable when both clans come rolling into town at the same time. Joining the fray is a mysterious, nameless cowboy with the fastest guns in the west. Both clans are eager to enlist the ronin into their ranks, but he will only offer his services to the highest bidder.

Director:

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Actors and actresses:
    
    
    
  

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Quentin Tarantino:

• To be such a cool character, doing fast draws, wearing a cool costume, it just doesn't get any better than that.


• There's a childlike innocence to it. We could all be eight years old and doing this in our backyards and just having a whale of a time.

Takashi Miike:

• I am convinced that we have made something awesome, a Japanese movie that will please everyone in the world.


• When I was growing up, spaghetti westerns were in their heyday. We played with toy guns and naturally wanted to make this kind of movie when we grew up.


• For this movie, we used Japanese English, not the English perfectly spoken in the United States or in the UK... If this is accepted, then Japanese English will come to be known as something very cool.

Kaori Momoi:

• We wanted to show the world that Japanese actors could make movies in English and not "lose" to "Memoirs of a Geisha".


• If the way Japanese actors speak English comes to be accepted, then it will add to Japanese actors' range.

Ito Hideaki:

• Though I don't speak the language at all, this experience made me want to do another movie in English... And I'd really like to make another spaghetti western in Japan, but this time in Italian.

• Midnight Eye review, by Tom Mes
  http://www.midnighteye.com/reviews/sukiyaki-western-django.shtml
  Sukiyaki Western Django is not the Miike movie with the bad English. Sukiyaki Western Django is the movie that best embodies the freedom, the joy, the vitality, and the lucidity that form the basis of Takashi Miike's filmmaking.


• Twitch - TIFF Report, by Todd Brown
  http://twitchfilm.net/site/view/tiff-report-sukiyaki-western-django-review/
  Sukiyaki Western Django captures Miike in his glossy, crowd pleasing, supposedly mainstream mode - this is far more the Miike of Zebraman and The Great Yokai War than the Miike of Ichi the Killer - and it is one of the very best examples of the type, a near perfect fusion of the raw energy that made so many cultists fans in the first place and the technical polish that has become increasingly evident in his more recent work. It is stylish, surprising, occasionally shocking but mostly just very, very fun.


• Bloody Disgusting Horror, by Mr. Disgusting
  http://www.bloody-disgusting.com/review/1905
  SUKIYAKI was no doubt a Miike film, carrying all of the characteristics - including the bad ones. In terms of a quality movie, SUKIYAKI was lacking in the screenplay, the entire tone (seriousness) and overall effort. While the film felt rushed (or ignored) in certain areas (most notably in the acting), Miike excels to the top of his game in others (the eye candy). If you're looking for a Takashi Miike film, you've found it. SUKIYAKI WESTERN DJANGO is a typical Miike film in every aspect, so there are no surprises nor disappointments... unless of course you've never seen anything by Miike.


• The Japan Times Online, by MARK SCHILLING
  http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/ff20070914a1.html
  The biggest miscalculation, however, was the decision to have the Japanese cast speak English - and not simple day-to-day conversational English either, but ornately colloquial dialogue that rolls out of monolingual mouths like someone reciting the Gettysburg Address while gargling water. Some in the cast, such as Kaori Momoi and Yusuke Iseya, rate fairly high on the intelligibility scale, but the overall effect is grating. Will this bother local audiences? Maybe. I would also be annoyed if I had to sit though a Hollywood remake of "Yojimbo," Akira Kurosawa's classic 1961 Eastern Western, with Brad Pitt emoting in mangled Edo Period Japanese.


• Exclaim! Magazine, by Cam Lindsay
  http://www.exclaim.ca/motionreviews/generalreview.aspx?csid1=115&csid2=808&fid1=27945
  The fast-paced action is well staged on a set that borrows from both western and samurai traditions; Miike mixes both good old gunplay (a Gatling gun that's housed in the original film's iconic coffin) and martial arts swordplay, which intermingle cohesively until the last fight.


• Reel Time, by Will Sloan of Inside Toronto
  http://blogs.insidetoronto.com/reel_time/festivalsrepertory/..sukiyaki-western-django/
  "This is a crazy, fast-paced spectacle of a movie, with some stunning action scenes and gorgeously colourful production design. The problem is, it's an empty spectacle. Ultimately, Sukiyaki Western Django is an exhausting experience. This is not a film you become involved in - it isn't funny or engaging."

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