Japanese cult western leans hard on the ‘weird’ button
A bizarre title like Sukiyaki Western Django is likely to attract two distinct audiences. Audience No. 1 will look at the title and think “That title makes no fucking sense. They probably just pulled random words out of a hat. Awesome! I hope the entire film is utter and complete nonsense!”
Audience No. 2 meanwhile is thinking “Aha! This must be Takashi Miike’s pastiche of spaghetti westerns in general and Django (1966) in particular! Awesome! By calling his film a “sukiyaki western” Miike is clearly referencing the fact that A Fistful of Dollars (1964) was actually a remake of the Japanese samurai classic Yojimbo (1961)! Fortunately my vast knowledge of the cinematic works of Leone Corbucci Sollima Kurosawa Miike and (what the heck) Tarantino along with my fascination with Japan’s “Genpei Wars” period will help me to fully appreciate the intricacies of… (yadda yadda yadda. Six additional paragraphs of film geekery are removed here for the sake of space).
Our story takes place in the Old West — or perhaps Japan in the year 1185. All of the cowboys are Japanese and speak English with really strong Japanese accents. Actually never mind. The story takes place somewhere completely made up and disconnected from reality. Suspension of disbelief isn’t necessary in this film — in fact I’m not sure it’s even possible. You’ve got the Genji clan (dressed in white) and the Heike clan (dressed in red) fighting over a fortune in gold when a stranger drifts into town offering to sell his services to one side or the other. Naturally his true aim is to get both forces to massacre each other. There’s also a traumatized young boy his badass gunslinging grandmother a Gatling gun and Quentin Tarantino in two roles. As in many Miike films eccentric characters pop up everywhere and the opening and closing sequences are inventive and berserk enough to help us forgive the movie’s somewhat patchy middle part. Since all of the actors (except for Tarantino) are speaking in a language that they’re not fully comfortable with (subtitles compensate for the strong accents) acting takes a back seat to the bizarre visuals of Miike’s set pieces. The dialogue may be alternately silly and dull but it’s the gunfights where this movie really shines. Bullets are deflected by the flick of a samurai sword blood spatters on the “sky” of a painted backdrop and a group of cowards cluster behind a single human shield like a conga line. I particularly like the scene in which the Genji boss points his gun sideways at nothing pulls the trigger and somehow hits the Heike boss way off in the distance. Was it a ricochet? Gravity and wind? Did the bullet travel all the way around the Earth?
To really enjoy Sukiyaki Western Django it helps to either be a know-it-all film geek or to be in the mood for lots of weird-for-the-sake-of-weird absurdity. If you’re not in one of these two camps this movie frankly doesn’t give a shit about you. “Normal” audiences should probably stay away but there is a lot of fun to be had here especially if the nonsense-lovers and the esoteric film buffs go to the film together. The absurdophile can laugh at the way the multiple-personality-disorder sheriff argues with himself and the esoteric can point out why the sheriff suddenly gets impaled on a wooden cross with the name “Mercedes Zaro” etched on it. (FYI It’s the same tombstone that Franco Nero crouched behind in the finale of the original Django .)