Director: Takashi Miike
Writers: Takashi Miike, Masa Nakamura
Cast: Hideaki Ito, Masanobu Ando, Koichi Sato, Kaori Momoi, Quentin Tarantino
Set during "The Genpei Wars" at the end of the 1100s, the Minamoto and Taira gangs face off in a town named Yuda, while a deadly gunman (Ito Hideaki) comes to the aid of the townsfolk.
'Takashi Miike’s over the top updated version of Django is more a reinvention than remake. Sharing an equal kinship between Kurowsawa style samurai films and spaghetti westerns. We still get the graveyard, machine gun in the coffin and cross through the stomach scenes. The film starts with a very surreal overly stylized introduction with Quentin Tarantino as Ringo. While making his lunch (an eagle’s egg cut out of the stomach of a snake) and killing a set of bandits he tells us a bit about the story of the war of the roses. After the titles the film starts proper, a stranger walks into a Nevada gold rush town which has two rival gangs the (red) Heike and (white) Genji each trying to find a local treasure. The stranger is set upon by both parties only he's more powerful than either, so both sides try to acquire the stranger for their own gang. The local sheriff (who’s got a wickedly silly split personality) is sent by the reds to lure the stranger to their side, he tells the stranger about a mute boy who was the son of both heike and genji and how his father was killed by the heike, and mother was raped and made prisoner of the genji. Not wanting to join either party the stranger’s agenda sways in favour of helping the mother and her mute son. He's aided by Bloody Benten an old gun toting spinster who we later learn was raised in the way of the gun by Tarantino. It does have its flaws most notably due to English clearly not being the 1st language of most the stars, a lot of the dialogue seems to come with a pause. The plots a bit messy in area's as well. But when the action kicks in you can't fault it, its so nice and varied visually from the white and red sets used for the gangs scenes to the washed out graveyard setting and final snow covered stand off. Miike’s been more miss lately with all those dire shot of digital video movies he seems to pump out, so it's a nice reminder that given the budget he can still do the business.Comes recommended its highly enjoyable silly hyper violent ride. Though I kinda wish Miike had filmed it in Japanese and Tarantino had been too busy to film his bits hehe.'
(8 out of 10)
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