Eastern Western

I'm sure that you're aware of the interplay between Japanese samurai movie and American (and Italian) westerns. For example, The Seven Samurai was inspired by American westerns, and was remade as the spaghetti western The Magnificent Seven. But I don't think anyone has taken it as far as Takashi Miike's Sukiyaki Western Django.

SWD takes place in a California goldrush town in Japan, or something. Pretty much everyone is Japanese dressed as cowboys, in a town with Japanese and western architecture. Like Afro-Samurai, it doesn't make sense, so don't worry. The town is controlled by two warring families, the Heike and the Genji clans, the red and the white. Into this town comes a gunslinger...

Yes, it's the plot of A Fistful of Dollars, as well as Yojimbo and Kill! and who knows how many others. Other than this broad plot outline, I didn't understand thing one. Like so many Asian films, the subplots were convoluted and subtle, at least for me. Also, the characters all spoke English, but it mostly sounded like it was learned phonetically by non-English speakers. Even Quentin Tarantino, who acts as a kind of narrator, speaks in this strange accent, like he was phonetically imitating a Japanese speaker speaking English phonetically. A cute gag, but it didn't improve comprehension.

If you don't recognize Miike-san's name, the Tarantino should at least clue you to the amount of graphic violence in this movie. Tarantino is also the clue to the level of "intertextual play" or swipes from other movies, texts, etc. But I'm not sure anything could have prepared me for the traditional saloon dance scene set to a didgeridoo.