This movie sucked in so many ways.

pretend this movie was made entirely in the US by american filmmakers/actors... it most likely WOULD be total crap. it would probably be called "Ramen Noodle Western Movie" or something equally retarded, and made by the same people who made such classic films as 'Scary Movie', 'Date Movie', and 'Epic Movie.'

there's obviously a vast difference between 'Sukiyaki...' and those movies.

japanese movies being overly hyped just for the fact that they're japanese... i agree, that really is extremely stupid... a good movie's a good movie, regardless of where it comes from (and crappy ones are crap, as you said lonco). this movie was entertaining to me, i enjoyed watching it. i liked the style, the humor, the action, the story, the characters, etc. yeah, a lot of parts were "bad", but in a "good" way.

perhaps you guys went into this movie thinking it was going to be just another "over hyped japanese film" so you watched it with contempt and hated it for all the reasons other people enjoyed it?

but anyway, for the OP, this movie was great because of the sum of its parts. the story was totally derivative of "war of the roses" and "romeo and juliet" and the original "django", but it seemed more of an homage to them than just a rip-off or as just another spoof. there was a very serious plotline going throughout the movie, broken up from time to time with cheesy one liners, slapstick and audio/visual gags keeping things fresh and lightening some scenes up. then in direct contrast there were some really dramatic and violent scenes. the whole visual style was really cool: i liked the look of the film, and particularly the scenes with tarantino looking like it was done as a stage-play.

to sum up, the movie was like a mash-up of a western-samurai-action-comedy-drama, and in my opinion did each one of those parts well, which is what made this movie great... for me anyway.

i love miike, but his movies really are hit or miss. this just happens to be one of the ones that struck a chord with me.

My DVD has the wonderful good fortune of having the original English (or Engrish as we like to call it) dubbed English, and dubbed Japanese. And I will not lie, the Engrish is by far the better version. And I challenge anyone who is bringing up this problem of language to go back and watch some of our classic spaghetti westerns and tell me that the side-characters weren't either dubbed out of their asses or spoke broken english there too. That sums up exactly what this thing is spoofing.

However it manages one better by being a spoof that stands on its own merits. It doen't take scene for scene from the greats and try to make it look assenine. It takes some scenes and ideas and expands and moulds them into its own perfect fit.

And I can safely say that there is a difference with it being made in Japan, it's also for Japanese audiences, quite principally in fact. And so far, from what I can tell, and judging by the number of copies that are constantly out from Tsutaya, it's gone down pretty well. The world isn't just out to please America. How your country handles foreign films is your problem, but don't take that as a symptom of the foreign industry at large.

Sebastian

"You cant drown, you're immortal!"
http://www.horrormoviefans.com/message_board

You know people have no arguments to criticize a movie when they start using lines like "people like this because is japanese/foreign/hip/etc"

"I believe the common character of the universe is not harmony, but hostility, chaos and murder."

"There's also people who will love everything that hollywood makes, or everything that Tarantino makes, so your point is?"

That's exactly my point. Everything has a fanboy crowd.

"Cain and Abel will go to Heaven... if they can make it through Hell!"
-Los Hijos Del Topo

Anyone who thinks this movie was meant to be "smart" is riding Miike's dick. This was clearly meant to be silly, foolish, and a guilty pleasure- yet it's boring, flat, and sucky. Great ideas that don't play well together. Irritating dialogue is a downer- no matter what the genius intention is- it pulls you right out of the whole thing so you wish you could physically harm some of these actors for the way they talk. Being frustrated isn't funny

After watching this movie I realized I'm not really a Miike fan. I've seen many of his movies including Audition, Fudoh, Dead or Alive, Visitor Q, Imprint, 3 Extremes, Izo, Gozu, Full Metal Yakuza, and Ichi The Killer. Of those the first one I saw and the only one I've every really loved was Ichi. I know it's heresy, borderline blasphemy, to say that but it's true.

Django had some great moments and some wonderful shots (the hero coming out of the hut, the tracking shot of the girls' escape, the reveal of Benten). It has the trademark violence, though it's toned down a little and some excellent character moments.

But the bad english, bad dialogue and some really unrealistic things took me out. If I watched as if it were a Miike fantasy film that happened to take place in the west, it was pretty good. But it fails as a western, and is a real missed opportunity to revisit the western with Japanese eyes (where so many spaghetti stories came from).

It's an above average Miike film, best in some time, but it's not a good western and really a "fans only" type picture.