telophase: (Gin grins again)
telophase ([personal profile] telophase) wrote2009-03-16 09:43 am
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Watched Sukiyaki Western Django with [livejournal.com profile] myrialux Saturday night. Lush, gorgeous costumes and art direction. Plot - nothing you haven't seen before. Attitude: hipster. Basically a remake of Yojimbo crossed with spaghetti Westerns like Django, set in an AU where the Japanese have settled the American West. At least that's how *I* explain why it's set in Nevada and the two warring gangs are the Heike and the Genji. :) It was shot in English, and several of the minor characters' actors have that "I have learned my lines phonetically!" thing happening, but the major actors are much more fluent, and your ear gets used to it very quickly.

It was also about 20 minutes too long. Oh well. But I loved the mixture of Western and Japanese elements, and the inversion of the Mysterious Foreign Sensei being Western (well, Quentin Tarantino, in a minor role). (We're not discussing the gender roles, however. :/) And the visuals are gorgeous. I am tempted to pick up the DVD for that. I wouldn't sit and watch the whole movie again, but I'd be willing to dip in here and there

Anyone who's seen it and knows something about Japanese literature/theatre - Tarantino's lines in the opening: are they from something? They had that feel, although I admit I was only paying half attention as I was also making kanzashi at the time. (ETA: Opening paragraph from the Tale of the Heike, thanks, [livejournal.com profile] keelieinblack!)

[identity profile] ebony14.livejournal.com 2009-03-16 05:29 pm (UTC)(link)
I had it recommended to me by my folks; I found it to be weird and funny. The whole cast of characters were Genre Savvy - witness the early warning by one gangleader to the Mysterious Stranger not to "go Yojimbo on them" and Tarantino's comment about naming his son Akira - "I guess I'm just an otaku at heart." The weird link to "Django" (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0060315/) made me want to find that movie, although I suspect it's pretty cheesy, as it's described on IMDB as a knockoff of Leone's Spaghetti Westerns, and those are already swimming in queso.