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Mixed or average reviews - based on 13 Critics What's this?

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Generally favorable reviews- based on 14 Ratings

  • Starring: Hideaki Ito, Kôichi Satô, Quentin Tarantino
  • Summary: Famed Japanese auteur Takashi Miike, best known for cult classics "Audition", "Ichi the Killer", and "The City of Lost Souls", redefines the spaghetti Western with Sukiyaki Western Django, a tale written in blood. Two clans, Genji, the white clan led by Yoshitsune, and Heike, the red clan led by Kiyomori, battle for a legendary treasure hidden in a desolate mountain town. One day, a lone gunman, burdened with deep emotional scars but blessed with incredible shooting skills, drifts into town. Two clans try to woo the lone gunman to their sides, but he has ulterior motives. Dirty tricks, betrayal, desire and love collide as the situation erupts into a final, explosive showdown. (First Look Studios) Expand
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 4 out of 13
  2. Negative: 1 out of 13
  1. 80
    Once you get past the question of why someone would make a movie this artificial in the first place and move on to the answer (purely for the hell of it), Sukiyaki Western Django is a blood-drenched, dynamite, often hilarious and uniquely weird big-screen entertainment.
  2. Reviewed by: Jim Ridley
    60
    This delirious spaghetti eastern could only have come from the boiling brain of Takashi Miike, the prolific Japanese auteur whose spectacularly uneven films account for the lion's share of the past decade's most utterly batshit movie moments.
  3. 50
    Darkly funny (par for the course with Miike), visually stunning and full of references to other films.
  4. Not even a brief appearance by Quentin Tarantino and a ton of references to other movies enlivens the proceedings much.

See all 13 Critic Reviews

Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 3 out of 4
  2. Mixed: 0 out of 4
  3. Negative: 1 out of 4
  1. ScottJ.
    10
    This movie is a hyperactive live action anime-manga twist on the Italian Western. Like Alex Cox's "Straight to Hell," this film blends two genres (here, Chanbara/Samurai and the Italian Western) to give us something surreal, shocking, and ironic. The Japanese cast speak English in an almost stereotypical "ESL" way and it comes off like a riff on the crappy dubs Asian movies of the 70s got in the West. Quentin does his bit perfectly and even switches to a stereotypical "white man doing a Japanese accent" for some dialogue. Everything is knowingly artificial and it works - well. A saloon features a Japanese theater stage, where an interpretive dance based on a variety of Asian dance forms is performed; instead of the usual painted backdrop found in old westerns, here we have a painted Japanese screen as backing; katanas fly against six-shooters; the clothes are a hodgepodge of street gang, old west, and samurai; The War of the Roses meets Yojimbo meets Fistful of Dollars. All in all, I am extremely pleased and enjoy the film immensely. Gets more repeat viewing than Kill Bill at my house. Expand
  2. MikeH
    8
    This movie was hilarious and had me laughing the whole way through!
  3. [Anonymous]
    6
    Hmm...miike should stick with horror/shock. i won't go as far as to say tarantino's movies are garbage, as that has nothing to do with this movie because he doesn't direct it. i suppose if i were japanese i would get a kick out of the actors speaking english...but as an american viewer it's a bit muddled. lot's of bits and pieces from other westerns and some awkward comedic relief drag it down. miike's got a flair for style, though. Expand
  4. JayH.
    3
    I have never liked films like this and doubt I ever will. Anything Tarantino touches to me is garbage. It is well photographed, the acting is fair at best but the story is relentlessly boring. Expand