Resonance

Takeshi Miike is know for his productivity (read that as insane amount of films made in a year) and his ability to make the audience cringe whether from gore, fear, or bad genre acting. Now imagine there is a world where Miike grew up in The US West watching Italian spaghetti westerns while forced to re-watch Kurosowa’s Yojimbo over and over again because it got stuck in the VCR, all while his creepy neighbor Quentin Tarantino keeps whispering horrible one liners into his ear. If that were the case, Sukiyaki Western Django would make perfect sense. It’s not the case so this film exists in a parallel universe, and I am convinced that another universe got a very bad yakuza film.

Essentially, Sukiyaki Western Django is a remake per se of the film Django (I’ve never heard of it either but apparently it also has a coffin that hides a machine gun). You have a fairly straightforward story of a town overrun by two gangs in hopes of finding the town’s hidden treasure. That’s when a lone gunman (Hideaki Ito) walks into town with uncanny fighting ability. But, before all of that goes down you get a nice little introduction to the story by a lonesome cowboy Piringo (Quentin Tarantino). I have no idea why, it’s just the way it is. I think you could effectively call it dramatic foreshadowing. Anyways, from the entry of the the gunman to the falling action, the film is Yojimbo but with cowboys instead of samurai. We are then given multiple plot elements that lead to typical Miike confusion. We are finally left with a promising ending, after almost everyone dies a horrible death. It’s no surprise then that the red gang’s leader Kiyomori (Koichi Sato) is utterly fascinated with Shakespeare.

One other quirk to mention before I go into my favorite character, all of the actors speak their dialog in English rather than Japanese. Very bad English in fact. Another aspect of the genius (madness) of Miike. It makes the film and the characters more humorous and sublime. Speaking of sublime, the town’s Sheriff Hoanka (Teruyuki Kagawa) is a shining star in this film. Not really because of his acting, but because of the character’s tendency to be psychotic. Quite literally, he becomes schizophrenic from being pulled back and forth between the two rival gangs. There are moments where even though the pace of the film has slowed, Hoanka comes into frame carrying on a conversation with himself, including a few fist fights between his own hands. I’m not sure why this one character is able to create such continuity, but without him the film would go to deep in the lulls of storytelling.

Sukiyaki Western Django could easily be considered a film that flirts with postmodern ideals. Even though it acts as parody, it is more along the lines of pastiche (or a blank parody). Miike is not making fun of the films he references (such as Scary Movie), instead he turns it into an homage (much like Hot Fuzz, but Hot Fuzz does it better). You really just have to go with the film at times and accept the sublime nature of what you are watching.

My only knock on the film is that it does drag on. I think that some of the homages and humor become tedious and the film should have been cut down a bit. Just when you think you reach the end, a new plot detail is added to extend it. Yes the end is rewarding, but more like that nice glass of water after you’ve run a marathon rather than a truly cinematic reward (I’m not sure exactly what I mean by this but it is something I’m going to look for more often. Perhaps it comes from Reception Theory and feeling fulfilled at the end of the film even if the ending is open rather than tied up nicely). Would I suggest watching Sukiyaki Western Django? That’s a tough call, but only because it is very strange, and could easily be overwhelming or misunderstood. It is fun and worth it just to see a filmmaker trying to push the envelope a bit.