Product Description

SUKIYAKI WESTERN DJANGO BLURAY (BLU-RAY DISC)

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #7509 in DVD
• Brand: SUKIYAKI WESTERN DJANGO BLURAY (BLU-RAY DISC)
• Released on: 2008-11-11
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
• Formats: AC-3, Color, Dolby, Subtitled, Widescreen
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: Spanish
• Number of discs: 2
• Dimensions: 5.00 pounds
• Running time: 98 minutes

Amazon.com
The prolific Takashi Miike co-wrote and directed this strikingly postmodern remake of Sergio Corbucci's 1966 Spaghetti Western, Django. The story is much the same, but the highly stylized fusion of Japanese gangsterism and operatic musings on the Western form makes for a wild and unexpected cult movie. Still, there is not much here beyond the film's relentlessly creative surface, making Sukiyaki a bit wearying. Feuding for centuries, the Genji and Heiki clans both arrive in a 19th century Nevada town, determined to find hidden treasure rumored to be there. In the midst of their fighting comes a solitary gunslinger (Hideaki Ito) courted by each clan to work for them. When he refuses, the cross-currents of betrayal and murder escalate, and hidden truths behind at least one tragedy, and the real identity of an unlikely shooter, come to the surface. The film's energy, dynamic camerawork and almost tongue-in-cheek performances are fun and admirable, and Miike has a fascinating sense of composition. The story gets a little soft just past the halfway point and Miike attempts to fill the void with exhausting new ways of filming bloody mayhem for its own sake. Quentin Tarantino has a small role as a mystery man with a link to these events. --Tom Keogh

Customer Reviews

I really wanted to like it...I did.
I just couldn't bring myself to do it. It took me several sittings to get through it the first time. Then I thought maybe I wasn't being fair to it so when some friends were over this past weekend we watched it together (all of them Miike fans too). The group consensus was that while we appreciated what he was trying to do with this, it just wasn't for us. I always find a bit of humor in most Miike films, no matter how sick. This just felt more like a Kung Fu Hustle type of deal, which isn't a bad thing but isn't my bag. The drama was also just a little overwrought in places. I couldn't really deal with the bad dialogue either, I'm not sure if that is supposed to be an homage to Sergio Leone filsm or what, but it was really distracting. We had to go back more than a few times to catch what characters were saying, and finally just gave up and put subtitles on. I'm not sorry I saw it, it's just not what I was hoping it would be.

ok but nothing special
This film is a homage to the spaghetti westerns of the 1960s with a couple twists. It mixes up and reverses many of the behind the scenes cultural exchanges behind the 1960s westerns. Therefore we get Japanese characters doing an Italian-style story set in a town in the American west. The twists make it more interesting than the average homage work, but its still not much more than a repetition that can't escape the constraints of the original work. For a better take on the genre, see the australian film "the proposition".

Tarantino being in the film is a real negative. So is the overly cute title. And firstlook studios does its usual bad job in terms of the Blu-Ray cut. I really wanted to like this more but I can't.

Warning
First Look Pictures has done this film and viewers a disservice. Aside from cutting 23 minutes from the original theatrical release, thereby making the narrative chopped and damaging the more fluid presentation of the original film, they have also overly saturated the color and brightness of the film during the reminiscent episodes, as well as some of the segments concerning the "Reds." I will applaud them for providing better clarity in the sound reproduction for dialogue, but ultimately would recommend avoiding this blu-ray transfer (as well as their regular DVD, due to similar editing)in favor of the original theatrical release, which is available through various vendors: RedSun DVD; DVD Asian; or YesAsia. Alternatively, try to track down an Asian blu-ray that presents the original run-time and that also offers a better quality transfer than First Look.