One can glean from simply reading the title that Sukiyaki Western Django will be 1: very Japanese and 2: an homage to every western ever. The Django series is obscure enough nowadays to make the reference appear more clever than it is. One of only four films Takashi Miike made last year (must have been a slow one), Django is yet another pseudo-adaptation of the classic Red Harvest story of a town with two warring factions and a lone gunmen betwixt it all. But the story is inconsequential in the end, as Miike's goal is to throw as much insanity as he can in a twisted anachronistic American west inhabited only by the Japanese (and a single Quentin Tarantino) all berobed in a mélange of traditional kimonos and exaggerated western wear. The inclusion of Tarantino's hamminess (both in acting and physique here) is interesting as the whole film has the feel of a half-Tarantino movie. With the over the top, often hilarious gore spectacles, one could see the genre explosiveness Tarantino has applied in the past influencing Miike at every turn.
While always interesting and more or less entertaining, this excessive stylization and absurdity does not make a cohesive film. Running at around 30 minutes too long, we meander around, often unclear as to what is occurring in front of us. I'm not sure if this is due to the story itself or the fact that every line is spoken in English by Japanese actors who clearly have no idea what they are spouting. Most of it must have been memorized phonetically and the end result is nearly all characters sounding like The Man From Another Place in Twin Peaks. Enjoyably weird, but the inability for proper pronunciation helps muddy the story. Also, the initial promise of all out psychedelia and fantasy is not delivered. The opening scene features bright luscious colors on a clearly false backdrop containing a sun held up by a string (the entire scene is quite reminiscent of Tears of the Black Tiger). Blood even splatters upon the sun at one point in a gorgeously surreal effect. Had the entire film been stylized in the same way, perhaps it would have collapsed under its own insanity but it would have been more watchable than the product we are left with now. In the end we have an interesting experiment with a few great sequences, but it never amounts to much.
While always interesting and more or less entertaining, this excessive stylization and absurdity does not make a cohesive film. Running at around 30 minutes too long, we meander around, often unclear as to what is occurring in front of us. I'm not sure if this is due to the story itself or the fact that every line is spoken in English by Japanese actors who clearly have no idea what they are spouting. Most of it must have been memorized phonetically and the end result is nearly all characters sounding like The Man From Another Place in Twin Peaks. Enjoyably weird, but the inability for proper pronunciation helps muddy the story. Also, the initial promise of all out psychedelia and fantasy is not delivered. The opening scene features bright luscious colors on a clearly false backdrop containing a sun held up by a string (the entire scene is quite reminiscent of Tears of the Black Tiger). Blood even splatters upon the sun at one point in a gorgeously surreal effect. Had the entire film been stylized in the same way, perhaps it would have collapsed under its own insanity but it would have been more watchable than the product we are left with now. In the end we have an interesting experiment with a few great sequences, but it never amounts to much.