Tarantino vs Takashi Miike

Here are a couple of looks at Japanese horror master Takashi Miike’s upcoming Japanese Western “Sukiyaki Western Django”, which was shot entirely in English, and even features a cameo appearance by Miike pal Quentin Tarantino. So what’s it about? “Set during “The Genpei Wars” at the end of the 1100s, the Minamoto and Taira gangs face off in a town named Yuda, while a deadly gunman (Ito Hideaki) comes to the aid of the townsfolk.” Sounds a lot like Sergio Leone’s “A Fistful of Dollars”, aka Akira Kurosawa’s “Yojimbo”, aka Dashiell Hammett’s “Red Harvest”. Then again, I could be wrong.

Billed as “Japan’s first true Western” and shot entirely in English (an interesting turn, given that Miike doesn’t speak the language himself), the film stars Hideaki (PYROKINESIS) Ito, Koichi Sato, Yuseke Useya, Masanobu Ando and Kaori (MEMOIRS OF A GEISHA) Momoi (with whom Tarantino shares his scenes). The title’s a nod to one of the most famous of Italy’s spaghetti Westerns of the 1960s, in which Franco Nero played the title role.