Sukiyaki Western Django

Takashi Miike

This film was suggested to me by one of my friends who recently moved to Los Angeles from Japan and is infatuated with American culture. I preface my film review with this, because Miike’s film does a great job of combining Japanese and American style. He uses the structure of an American Spaghetti Western, but the entire cast is Japanese and the two sides fighting are Japanese samurai gangs. The title alone is also a brilliant combination of American and Japanese: “Sukiyaki Western Django”, with sukiyaki being a Japanese dish, and Django being a reference to the classic spaghetti Western. My friend explained that Miike has a similar style to Quentin Tarantino, who actually appears in the film. I thought it was interesting that this film came out in 2007, long before Tarantino’s “Django Unchained”, so I can only assume Miike’s film was a big influence on Tarantino.

Unfortunately, this film is inappropriate for classroom use, but it would make for a very interesting analysis for a film class. It is also just a really entertaining film to watch for personal enjoyment.