SUKYAKI WESTERN DJANGO: AN ODD MIXTURE THAT WORKS

 

  

What happens when you take a little bit of the spaghetti western mix it with a touch of martial arts add a sprinkle of oriental mysticism and then place a dash of style to it? You get SUKYAKI WESTERN DJANGO from famed director Takashi Miike. Once again Miike shows that he is a force to be reckoned with.

For those unaware Django was a character found in several spaghetti westerns made mostly in the sixties and seventies. The character was given new life by director Quentin Tarantino in DJANGO UNCHAINED in 2012. But before that in 2007 was this film that took the name and style and transferred it to Japan.

The Genji and Heike clans have had a long standing feud and are now battling one another over a small village where they both think there is hidden gold to be taken. The rivalry between the two clans is historic and ancient but we now find them here in this town called Yuta. Wandering into the town is an unnamed gunfighter whose abilities are sought out by both clans to use against the other.

The gunfighter is given shelter by a woman named Ruriko who lives with her grandson Heihachi. She is the one that tells him of the rivalry between the clans and how they’ve driven nearly everyone out of the village.  The sheriff, who has aligned himself with the Heike clan, tells the stranger the story of a Heike man named Akira who fell in love with a Genji woman named Shizuka. They married and had a son, the aforementioned Heihachi. One day the angered Heike leader Kiyomori killed Akira. The end result was Heihachi becoming mute and Shizuka becoming a prostitute for the Genji to survive and protect her child.

As happened in many of the great spaghetti westerns the gunman plays one clan against the other. But there is more to this man and what he knows of the situation than anyone realizes. That secret fills in many of the missing parts of the story. Guns will blaze, swords will swish through the air and many will die before the final credits roll.

One would think that the combination of these various parts wouldn’t work but they actually do. Oddly it was the reverse that led to some of the greatest westerns made. THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN was based on SEVEN SAMURAI. A FISTFUL OF DOLLARS was a western remake of YOJIMBO. So seeing the western transported to Japan seems a natural progression.

Miike shows once again why he is a master of image and composition. The movie looks beautiful in spite of the barren landscape. Production values here are amazing to see. His use and choreography of action scenes continue to amaze.

The film was released before but this new version adds so much. Included here is an extended cut of the film, deleted scenes, a making of featurette, a sizzle reel, promotional clips and Japanese and US trailers and TV spots. The quality of this blu-ray transfer makes the film pop like never before. If you own a copy of the film I would suggest picking this one up anyway with because of the quality of the transfer and the extras. 

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