• Famed Japanese director Takashi Miike, best known for the cultics Audition, Ichi the Killer and The City of Lost Souls, redefines the spaghetti western in his English language masterpiece SUKIYAKI WESTERN DJANGO. A tale of two clans written in blood: the white Genjis, led by Yoshitsune, and the red Heikes, led by Kiyomori. As they battle for a legendary treasure hidden in a desolate mountain, a lo

Studio: First Look Home Entertain Release Date: 11/11/2008 Run time: 98 minutes Rating: RThe prolific Takashi Miike co-wrote and directed this strikingly postmodern remake of Sergio Corbucci’s 1966 Spaghetti Western, Django. The story is much the same, but the highly stylized fusion of Japanese gangsterism and operatic musings on the Western form makes for a wild and unexpected cult movie. Still, there is not much here beyond the film’s relentlessly creative surface, making Sukiyaki a bit wearying. Feuding for centuries, the Genji and Heiki clans both arrive in a 19th century Nevada town, determined to find hidden treasure rumored to be there. In the midst of their fighting comes a solitary gunslinger (Hideaki Ito) courted by each clan to work for them. When he refuses, the cross-currents of betrayal and murder escalate, and hidden truths behind at least one tragedy, and the real identity of an unlikely shooter, come to the surface. The film’s energy, dynamic camerawork and almost tongue-in-cheek performances are fun and admirable, and Miike has a fascinating sense of composition. The story gets a little soft just past the halfway point and Miike attempts to fill the void with exhausting new ways of filming bloody mayhem for its own sake. Quentin Tarantino has a small role as a mystery man with a link to these events. –Tom Keogh

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