The line between Japanese samurai films and Italian Westerns (called "spaghetti" in the West and "macaroni" in the East) has been blurry from the days of Akira Kurosawa and Sergio Leone. The widescreen expanses of 19th Century lawlessness was a cinematic language easily translated between chambara and Euro oaters.

Prolific filmmaker Takashi Miike forgoes the pasta and dubs his dabbling in the horse opera a "sukiyaki" western. This Japanese stew-like metaphor is appropriate as Miike throws in a great number of influences and references into his dish. What cooks up may bear the name "Django" (and he introduces a coffin hiding a machine gun midway through the film) but it owes more to Kurosawa than Corbucci in its acknowledged inspiration from YOJIMBO. The unnamed black clad antihero rides into a previously thriving town to find it a wretched hive of scum and villainy; occupied by a handful of citizens and two warring clans, the Genji and Heike.

Clad in red and white, Miike injects some heavy duty rose overtones into the film, calling out the War of the Roses, Henry VI, and a hybrid rose bush named "love" quite frequently. At least two of the film's characters are products of Genji (red) and Heike (white) love affairs.

Even with a wealth of past ideas to pilfer, SUKIYAKI WESTERN DJANGO can't sustain itself for its full two hour running time. Things slow down about an hour into the proceedings. In order to inject some life into the faltering action, Miike breaks into the cartoon sound effects library and attempts to make SWD a life action anime film. These instances feel completely out of place, even after the highly stylized pre-credit sequence starring living cartoon character Quentin Tarantino.

It's strange with actors speaking English as a second language (for the most part) and who muddle through some tricky pronunciations (thank goodness for the English subtitles) that the worst performance of the film comes courtesy of a native English speaker. Quentin Tarantino seems to be doing some kind of Western drawl crossed with a fluctuating German accept as if channeling a drunk Klaus Kinski through a faulty connection. Tarantino's embarrassing "acting" may be brief but every second he spends on screen is excruciating.

Sure to be a hit with every hipster who has never seen an Asian in a cowboy hat (allow me to recommend TEARS OF THE BLACK TIGER and THE NEW MORNING OF BILLY THE KID), SUKIYAKI WESTERN DJANGO could do with some tightening up and a complete Tarantino-echtomy.

This is further proof that cult Japanese director Takashi Miike is not for me: as can be deduced from the title, the film is a pseudo-homage to the Italian Spaghetti Westerns (though Django has almost nothing to do with it!). In fact, the plot is yet another rehash of Japanese master Akira Kurosawa's samurai classic YOJIMBO (1961), which had actually led to Sergio Leone kick-starting the Spaghetti Western subgenre with that film's first remake A FISTFUL OF DOLLARS (1964)! Anyway, for Miike, this is typically violent fare – even more pointless than usual and all rather amateurishly assembled; besides, having the actors speak English results in unintentional laughter more than anything else (though Quentin Tarantino's absurd cameo is no less embarrassing: incidentally, I may well have been witness to the genesis of the picture back when these two mavericks 'butted heads' at the 2004 Venice Film Festival!). Needless to say, the squalid atmosphere peculiar to European Westerns is largely missing here…but, then, neither does the film extract particular benefit from its own country's heritage! With characterization tending towards mere posture (when it is not insipid), we are left with a clutch of stylized-but-hollow action sequences to grab the attention – all of which, ultimately, leaves a bad taste in the mouth. Perhaps mercifully, the version I watched is the shorter (by 23 minutes) International Cut.

I'm not entirely sure I understood the plot of Sukiyaki Western Django, mainly because I couldn't understand the dialogue very well, but I still can say it's unlike anything I have ever seen. In a time when ridiculously unoriginal films are hailed by critics and average viewers alike, it's great to see something truly different come to the screen. Sukiyaki Western Django takes the oldest subgenre in American cinema, the western, and spins it until it is original again—and it works.

I have never been a Takashi Miike fan at all, honestly. I have only seen this and Audition, but Audition was boring and cliché enough for me never to give him a second thought. Sukiyaki Western Django, however, shows his true capability as a director and that he isn't just another run-of-the-mill carbon copy like I originally thought after viewing Audition.

Sukiyaki Western Django is very dialogue heavy, but it still packs a lot of action and a lot more character deaths than is standard for this type of film. People are calling this movie gory, but it isn't. The blood is pretty generic and typical, though maybe a little more than your standard action flick. This didn't really disappoint me as much as it does in other movies, because blood isn't really needed in Sukiyaki Western Django. It carries itself with style and a lot of intense action.

I think the reason this film is getting so many negative reviews is because people don't get it. You really have to be a fan of the genres it imitates to understand it fully, even though the plot is simple. Two rival gangs, and one man, a gunslinger, they both need. The rest is a mix between action and art that simply stunned me. The town itself is so diverse it almost becomes its own character, and in a way it is. The aesthetic of some of the action scenes go so much further than the typical slow-mo Matrix rip-off you're used to and really creates a style all its own. The technical beeps in the background gave off a really cool surreal, modern feel that isn't overdone or annoying.

The acting worked for the genre, even though most of it is terrible and hard to understand. The entire Japanese cast, minus Tarantino, worked because they all spoke English, which just added to the cool-weirdness. I'm sure if your high school English class tried to analyze every figurative detail it would take weeks. Just put it this way: as far as the formula goes, Sukiyaki Western Django is both original and complex to the point of insanity. I simply cannot understand how this is by the same man who wrote/directed Audition.

Overall, I'm going to quote something I heard someone say after they viewed Sukiyaki Western Django: "Well, that was different, but I wouldn't call it entertaining." That is the view a lot of people are going to have, and I can't deny people will think that just because I personally disagree with it. It comes very close to being too top-heavy with aesthetic for its own good, but, for me, it was still very entertaining and awing. I can't say anything else except that you need to see this and make up your own mind. It is original, that's not my opinion, and if you're like me and enjoy more than the typical Hollywood movie you MUST see this. If you can care less about originality and just want another typical western you've seen time and time again, don't bother.

It really matters what your opinion on entertainment is. But I loved it.

8/10