Check Out the Trailer

Takashi Miike is a director I have been intrigued with for some time. I’ve liked all the films of his that I have seen, up to this point, even if they’ve left me perplexed sometimes. At least they got me thinking. He often works in extremes such as in the morally ambiguous, yet fascinating, ICHI THE KILLER, and the provocative unaired episode of MASTERS OF HORROR titled IMPRINT. You know you’re pushing the boundaries when a pay cable channel thinks your work is too risqué to air. So I was excited to see what he would have in store when tackling his first English language feature in the style of a spaghetti western with an Asian infusion. After what I was served I should have settled for SpaghettiOs.

A gunslinger (Hideaki Ito, THE PRINCESS BLADE) rides into the town of Yuta where two rival gangs have been waging war against each other. The leader of the red gang Kiyomori (Koichi Sato, RASEN) brought his men into town to raid the gold miners. Yoshitsune (Yusuke Iseya, CASSHERN) brought his white gang into town to steal from the red gang. The gunslinger is unwilling to take sides, but does take an interest in the Romeo & Juliet-like tragic story of Yoshitsune’s slave Shizuka (Yoshino Kimura, BLINDNESS). With his mysterious motives, the gunslinger can’t trust anyone especially the corrupt sheriff (Teruyuki Kagawa, HERO) and the raspy voiced bar owner Ruriko (Kaori Momoi, MEMOIRS OF A GEISHA). Other shady characters will play roles as well, including the American gunman Ringo (Quentin Tarantino).

My description of the plot makes more sense of this convoluted mess than its presented on the screen. The gunslinger is merely an observer — a third-rate gun-for-fire in the mold of YOJIMBO and A FISTFUL OF DOLLARS. The stories of Shizuka, the gang war and the legend of famed gunfighter Bloody Benten all come into play and obscure what Miike is trying to get at. When Bloody Benten finally makes an appearance one quickly wonders why they hadn’t come out guns blazing ages before. Oh wait, then we wouldn’t have had to watch this movie — this Bloody Benten is a cold-hearted…

All hyperbole aside, the plot isn’t the only element all over the place. Miike switches tones so often that nothing on the screen can be taken seriously. One moment it’s a post-modern badass Western fused with samurai lore and the next it’s ARMY OF DARKNESS silliness. Making the story even less engaging is a cast of Japanese actors not ready for the English language. The timing is often so awkward you’re not sure the actors actually know what they are saying. And lets not even get into Tarantino hammy performance.

Because westerns influenced samurai films that then influenced spaghetti westerns, it seems natural to make a film combining cowboys and samurais. While Miike conjures some cool visuals, they are attached to nothing of substance, making them pretty pictures flapping in the wind. The title is a play on Italian westerns. Sukiyaki is a Japanese dish. DJANGO was a spaghetti western where a gunman was trapped in a Western town between a Mexican gang and the KKK. You can see the high-class material that influenced this production. Miike has never been a king of narrative, but this experiment doesn’t even have ideas to hide the structural problems. And like a vintage Western set, constructed of plywood, the whole thing collapses when the actors lean on the walls a bit.