Sukiyaki Western Django
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
|
Related e |
|
Featured: |
Sukiyaki Western Django is a 2007 English language Japanese Western film directed by Takashi Miike. The title of the film refers to the Japanese dish sukiyaki as well as Sergio Corbucci's Spaghetti Western film Django. The film was produced by Sedic International, Geneon Universal Entertainment, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Dentsu, TV Asahi, Shogakukan, A-Team, Nagoya Broadcasting Network and Tokyu Recreation. It also takes inspiration from the "Man with No Name" stock character variously used in the Spaghetti Western genre but most notably in the Dollars trilogy by Sergio Leone (initially inspired by Akira Kurosawa's jidaigeki film Yojimbo). The film features an ensemble cast that includes Hideaki Itō, Kōichi Satō, Yūsuke Iseya, Masanobu Andō, Masato Sakai, Yoji Tanaka, Renji Ishibashi, Sansei Shiomi, Takaaki Ishibashi, Shun Oguri, Quentin Tarantino, Yutaka Matsushige, Yoshino Kimura, Teruyuki Kagawa and Kaori Momoi.
Inspired by the historical rivalry between the Genji and Heike clans, which ushered in the era of samurai dominance in Japanese history, Sukiyaki Western Django is set "a few hundred years after the Genpei War". The Genji and Heike gangs face off in a town named "Yuta" in "Nevata", when a nameless gunman comes into town to help a prostitute get revenge on the warring gangs. The film contains numerous references both to the historical Genpei War and to the Wars of the Roses, as well as the films Yojimbo and Django.
The original version of Sukiyaki Western Django had a running time of 121 minutes (2 hours and 1 minute) when it first premiered on 5 September 2007 at the Venice Film Festival and was released on 15 September 2007 in Japan. This was the version shown in Japanese cinemas and received mixed reviews from critics. For the North American premiere at the New York Asian Film Festival on 1 July 2008, Miike had the film edited down to 98 minutes (1 hour and 38 minutes). This was the version released outside Japan.
See also
