Sukiyaki Western Django
2007; directed by Takashi Miike

Sukiyaki Western Django takes place in the town of Yuda, which is prospering due to gold found in the area. This attracts the attention of two gangs, the Heike Reds and Genji Whites, who occupy Yuda and start waging a war to try and gain a treasure chest full of gold buried somewhere around the town. Into the chaos walks a character known simply as The Gunman (Hideaki Ito), who begins playing both sides off of each other. The Gunman is originally motivated by money, but his motives change after he falls for a local woman and her son, and so The Gunman decides to try and end the gang war once and for all by any means necessary.

This movie is noted Japanese director Takashi Miike's homage to Spaghetti Western films, and it seems to be extremely polarizing among viewers. This is a film that you'll either love or consider garbage. This particular reviewer falls squarely into the former category. To be sure, Sukiyaki Western Django is totally derivative of Fistful of Dollars, which was itself inspired by Yojimbo - but you know what? This is still one hell of a fun and exciting movie.

Most of the criticisms about Sukiyaki Western Django come from some of Miike's stylistic choices. In what is most definitely a nod to the dubbed dialogue or badly-accented English featured in many Spaghetti Westerns, Miike has his Japanese actors speak in English. At times, honestly, one could really wish that Miike would have had done this as a Japanese-language production, because sometimes it's really hard to understand what the actors are saying. But overall, it's really not that big of a deal, and actually adds to this film's charm.

The other sticking point for many people is Miike's playing with the idea of time and space. Does this movie take place in Japan or America? A sign shown near the beginning of the film -- one of the few that is translated via subtitles -- says that Yuda is in Nevada, but certainly none of the proceedings featured here would fit into any logical timeline or history.

Also, for a movie that (supposedly) takes place in the 1800's, almost all of the characters (The Gunman being a notable exception) dress like they're from the futristic manga Akira. This is actually referenced by a character played by Quentin Tarantino because he named his son Akira because he's an "anime otaku". This sort of stuff clearly demonstrates that, for those who like make sure everything jibes in movies, this is not really the film for you.

But if you're willing to relax your gray matter for a bit and just sit back and enjoy the blitzkrieg Miike throws down here, you'll be in for a treat. Even with the broken English, the acting is still very solid, with some very memorable characters created - especially a former assassin known as Bloody Benton, who is one of the coolest characters ever. If you don't get a grin on your face while a lovely woman mows down bad guys while taking slugs of whiskey, then check your pulse.

One could waste a lot of time and bandwidth trying to defend Takashi Miike's methods here, but the plain fact is that Sukiyaki Western Django delivers a bit of everything from action to drama to romance, and does it with a ton of style. If you're on the fence whether to see this, just hop off, pop in the DVD, and enjoy the ride. The chances are high that if you're a fan of the movies given high ratings on this site, you'll dig this one as well.

RATING: 8