Review of Sukiyaki Western Django (2007) by Caleb M — 12 Jan 2009

Overall, this isn't a very good film. It's all style and no real purpose, other than to entertain. Takashi Miike's blending of Japanese and American westerns is bizzare, but once you realize it's basically one big playground for Miike to experiment in you can just sit back and enjoy it.

Anyways, plenty of films succeed on style alone, and Sukiyaki Western Django has it in spades. It may be outragously violent, cheesy and (let's face it) dumb, but it's just so fun! The story, unashamedly stolen (like so many other films' plots) from Yojimbo takes a backseat to the action, but since we already know the basic plot that doesn't matter.

The actors are all Asian (except for Quentin Tarantino in a brief and distracting, albeit entertaining , cameo) speaking English, which is distracting but adds to the fun. I'm amazed something this wild was able to get made, and you have to hand it to producers Toshiaki Nakazawa, Masato Ã?saki and Nobuyuki Tohya for having the balls to put up money for something so.

.. fucked up. Hopefully people will see this for the campy, weird, overblown passion piece that it is and not mistake it for some sort of arty action masterpiece, which is what some people will undoubtedly do.