BUY IT AT AMAZON: STUDIO: First Look Pictures
MSRP: $28.98
RATED: R
RUNNING TIME: 98 minutes
SPECIAL FEATURES:
Featurette
Deleted Scenes
The Pitch
Takashi Miike goes John Ford all over a motherfucker.
The Humans
Kaori Momoi, Koichi Sato, Quentin Tarantino, Takaaki Ishibashi and Teruyuki Kagawa
The Nutshell
Takashi Miike tries to continue on the tradition of Franco Nero’s Django.
Mixing bloodshed with carnal sexuality, Miike continues with his
patented panache. Playing off his friendship with auteur Quentin
Tarantino, Miike has stumbled upon something. An East meets West
tall-tale of a lone cowboy sharing in a legend that would make Leone
proud. Hideaki Ito offers a memorable turn as the unnamed gunman of
reknown.
The Lowdown
Sukiyaki Western Django
is another reason why Miike is King. Sure, his ideas don’t always gel
together everytime. But, he takes a fucking shot and goes for the
gusto. From the first reel, it’ll take the audience some time to get
used to the phonetic Western slang coming out of the Asian actors. It’s
a little hokey at first, but it’s no different than the stilted
dialogue in a Republic Western. Yet, Miike makes one fatal mistake in
the pursuit of pleasing aesthetic. He forgoes any reasonable structure.
Sukiyaki Western Django seems
to also show a kinder side of Miike. I want to say that Miike is
playing the sex and violence more gently, but others seem rather quick
to say that the man is losing his touch. The multiple rape scenes and
the quick jumps in action go back to my previous point. We’re seeing
Miike getting sloppy in exchange for a visual palette that would please
Western eyes. After the first hour, the experience is frustrating and
would push novice viewers away from more Miike experiments.
The
film isn’t easy to say the least. But, it’s not challenging. I’ve seen
a ton of Miike films and this has to be one of the weaker offerings.
What kills me is that the film feels dated for being a modern movie. I
wanted to see more action and more ka-pow. But, everything feels tame.
It’s a big build to something freaking major and then nothing. This
film fucking ebbs and flows so much, that it makes me sick.
Sukiyaki Western Django gets the Western tone in this fucked way. I’d put it on par with an immigrant only learning English from Sesame Street and
drunks on the street. There’s no rhyme or reason to the action, but
Miike doesn’t care. He’s here to make a visual experience that will
unfortunately leave the viewer minutes after turning off the DVD. I
hate to shit all over a talented filmmaker, but there are some things
that you can’t ignore. A film needs a fucking point. Sukiyaki Western Django only exists to keep your eyes focused on the screen.
The
DVD
has a pretty strong transfer with no audio dropout. The hour long
making-of featurette shows off a great deal of what went into the film.
But, the deleted scenes are a joke. If you’re Region Free, I’d
recommend picking up one of the Asian discs floating around on the open
market. You’ll get more deleted scenes, a longer cut of the film and no
obscured shots in the first rape scene. I know how important rape
scenes are to you.