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Film: Sukiyaki Western Django
Release date: 2nd February 2009
Certificate: 15
Running time: 121 mins
Director: Takashi Miike
Starring: Hideaki Itô, Masanobu Ando, Kôichi Satô, Kaori Momoi, Yûsuke Iseya
Genre: Action/Western
Studio: Contender
Format: DVD
Country: Japan
This is an English-language release.
Takashi Miike’s name is synonymous with the effect and style of Asian extreme cinema. Most notably Ichi The Killer, Audition and Three Extremes displayed a penchant for gore, twisted characters and the sickest of themes. With Sukiyaki Western Django, we are given Miike’s take on the spaghetti westerns of old. If this director’s reputation is anything to go by then this project promises a depiction of gun slinging worlds apart from the works of Sergio Leone and John Sturges.
The film starts sometime in the past as loner cowboy Piringo sits by his campfire with rattlesnake for dinner. As a small gang of enemies approach him, he tells the story of an ancient rivalry between the Genji and Heike clans, one which has been going strong since the Genpei war. He reveals a prophecy, “the mighty fall at last, to be no more than dust before the wind,” and in a flash he kills his attackers.
Many years later, and the rivalry lives on as strong as ever in the rural western town of Yuda. The white warriors of the Genji are lead by master swordsman Yoshitsune, and they live in hatred for the red warriors of the Heike and their talisman Kiyomori. The small town is growing poorer by the day, but there is great wealth to be found there - legend hints that lying somewhere in the hills is an ancient treasure of staggering value. The two rival tribes are each determined to find it before the other.
One day a gunman rides into town, and although mystery surrounds his past and his appearance, it soon becomes apparent that he is a highly skilled shot and warrior. Both tribes offer him riches beyond his wildest dreams for his help in finding the treasure. As speculation rises as to who he will join, so too does intensity between two lifelong enemies. Soon the small town breaks into a frenzy of murder, backstabbing and split allegiances...
One of the most striking and eye-brow raisingly strange elements of Miike’s film is the language in which it is spoken. This is technically the Japanese director’s first English-language film, but the delivery of the language comes in a way that is so stalled and disjointed that it is barely coherent. With subtitles throughout, this is no doubt deliberate, and it serves to produce the biggest of eastern/western contrasts - it also brings a smile to hear lines like “paybacks a bitch,” and “smells like victory,” spoken in an accent that makes it sound utterly foreign.
The presentation of the script reeks of homage to the type of dialogue you would expect to find spoken by Eastwood or Brenner - it does indeed borrow much from Sergio Corbucci’s 1966 script for Django, which is the film’s main basis. The homage’s come thick and fast, and not only offers the most comedic of parody but shows the director’s infatuation with the genre. We are treated to showdowns, femme fatales, and a mass of other genre conventions - the notion of the lone gunman who comes to town played by Hideako Ito has Charles Bronson written all over it, and the film’s cowboy town is called ‘Yuda’ based in ‘Nevada’.
With a wealth of spaghetti western elements on show, Takashi Miike’s attention to style is still the most effecting part of the film, and its slight downfall. The film has a cameo role for Quentin Tarantino, and it would seem this film has been done much in the same light as 2007 geeked out parody fest, Grindhouse . Unfortunately, it also shares a very similar smugness, and although you must admire Miike’s ability to create remarkable imagery, this film is not as smart as it thinks it is. The bizarre nature of his work may be his trademark but it comes across in many places here as thoughtless – take, for example, the hyper schizophrenic sheriff whose presence on screen is utterly grating.
The imagery, though, is at times beautifully weird and wonderful. We see a range of heavily painted backdrops, a wardrobe that is a pleasing mix of rugged western and Asian robes and, of course, the gore is top notch. Miike is able to show the most stomach churning and explicit visuals to the most comic effect - in one laugh out loud scene, a protégée of the Heike clan has a sword embedded into his skull to the shock of a silenced room, but as blood spurts from his head, he continues to attempt a block.
Unfortunately, the film’s superior style seems to sacrifice any clear plot, and the narrative is often too busy. A cast of unbelievably perverse and crazy characters compete for the screen, and the action is so hectic and relentless that it is all a bit too much to comprehend – the fight scenes are ruined. That said, for fans of Takashi Miike, this is pure indulgence, and to many, its mindless violence is not necessarily a bad thing.
In the context of Miike’s back catalogue, this is not one of his better films. Although this will divide audiences, the prospect of seeing a man as peculiar in his ways as Takashi Miike tackling something as classically revered as the western is a sight to behold. For fan boys especially, this is very worthy of your attention, with enough action and incident for three western epics. LW
Film: 252: Sign Of Life
Release date: 10th January 2010
Certificate: 12
Running time: 128 mins
Director: Nobuo Mizuta
Starring: Hideaki Itô, Masaaki Uchino, Takayuki Yamada, Yu Kashii, Minji
Genre: Action/Adventure/Drama/Thriller
Studio: MVM
Format: DVD
Country: Japan
Named after the Tokyo Fire Department code that indicates the discovery of survivors in need of rescue, Nobuo Mizuta’s latest offering is inspired by a real-life rescue event that occurred following the Chuetsu earthquake of 2004. Ambitiously comparing itself to The Towering Inferno (1974), while at the same time allowing expectations to drop by throwing Japan Sinks (2006) into the mix, 252: Sign Of Life still has its work cut out, so will it sink or swim?
Yuji Shinohara, a former member of the Tokyo Rescue Fire Service, is struggling to cope with his career change, still haunted by the memories that forced him to quit the job he loved.
As the birthday of his young, deaf-mute daughter Shiori approaches, so too does a devastating tidal wave that virtually destroys their city, forewarned by brutal, baseball-sized hailstones that pound Tokyo into submission.
Trapped in the rapidly flooding and collapsing subway system with only a handful of survivors, conflicting personalities must be put to one side if any of them are to survive and attract the attention of the elite response force Yuji once sacrificed so much for. The sooner the better, too, as another savage storm is about to strike…
“Is help ever going to come?” rants the tetchy medical trainee during the opening scene of Mizuta’s melodramatic mess up, probably mirrored by the viewer’s own feelings long before the two-hour-mark blows in. It’s frustrating to say the least. The hailstone assault at the outset, followed quickly by the tidal wave that terrifies Tokyo, is every bit as harrowing as anything witnessed in recent disaster movies, if not more so. It even looks and sounds great, too.
Mizuta clearly prefers to flex his action muscles, and the opening half-an-hour is by far the best, as Yuji searches for his wife and daughter during Mother Nature’s vicious onslaught - his daughter Shiori’s desperate blasts on her whistle may echo that of Rose’s in Titanic (1997), but it works just as well, and although its running time would’ve been criminally short, the credits should’ve rolled not long after.
Sadly, having bombarded the viewer with such transports of delight, Mizuta fails to capitalise, and as is so often the case with disaster movies, the aftermath is more or less an afterthought. Punctured by hammy dialogue (“Yuji, did you…get over it?”), flashbacks that should’ve opened the story, and far too convenient plot devices, encapsulated by a tension-free blood transfusion using a bubble-filter for fish-tanks, Sign Of Life shows little originality, and certainly none of its epithet.
Some of the sets actually resemble that of a daytime soap opera, with acting from its supporting cast matching its second-rate veneer – a far cry from the jaw-dropping opening act. Hideaki Ito and Ayane Omori, playing Yuji and daughter Shiori respectably, easily stand out from the crowd with solid performances that are in tune with the audience, even if Omori finally tests its patience with a discreditable change of fortune in the final act.
The biggest embarrassment though is Masaaki Uchino: plucked from television, destined to stay there, if he’s lucky, he plays Shizuma, brother of Yuji, and now in charge of the Fire Rescue Service. His acting credentials are seriously hampered by daft dialogue (he screams, in understated fashion, “It’s falling!” as the train carriage holding the survivors plummets to the ground) and a ridiculous team of rescuers that don’t want to do their jobs because it might be a bit dangerous.
The latter is the biggest bugbear of the entire movie, as time and time again rescue attempts are halted due to health and safety regulations. Mizuta even dares to create conflict by highlighting the displeasure of one of the team, annoyed that he’s not able to fulfil the job description he applied for. Fortunately, he’s quickly talked out of such ridiculous heroic endeavours by his colleagues (they have family and he doesn’t, you see).
Ultimately, other than a surprising turn of events, albeit brief, when Shiori tries to retrieve her present (how Yuji managed to keep it for so long in such surroundings is a question long since forgotten), the film continues to its wishy-washy, overblown, sentimental, and to be expected conclusion. Having said that, extra brownie points must be awarded to the nonsensical weather forecaster that dares to question the Rescue Service by uttering the line, “Can’t we save them by using a helicopter?” You can probably guess what happens next…
Anyone who can appreciate a studied, haunting portrayal of mankind’s struggle against its self-destructive tendencies is better off watching something else. 252: Sign Of Life is more disaster than movie, disguising its lacklustre script with impressive effects but little else. DW
Check out the clip below, taken from the film 252: Sign Of Life, which comes to DVD on 10th January 2010.
More information on this film can be found by clicking here.
Giant, baseball-sized hailstones and a devastating tidal wave are merely precursors to the main event, a mega-typhoon that strikes Japan and virtually destroys Tokyo, leaving a handful of survivors trapped in the rapidly flooding and collapsing subway system with their fate of hanging in the balance. Among them is a former Hyper Rescue Squad member, Yuji Shinohara, and his young deaf-mute daughter, Shiori, along with a desperate businessman, an antagonistic medical trainee and a beautiful Korean nightclub hostess.
Taking turns to tap out the 2-5-2 distress signal on the surrounding walls and pipes as chaos continues to reign above and below ground, they manage to attract the attention of an elite response force from the Tokyo Fire Department on the surface who were about to give up hope of finding anyone alive. With the eye of the huge, killer storm about to hit the area, both the rescuers and survivors must find the courage to risk everything in order to avoid certain death at the hands of nature.
Directed by Nobuo Mizuta (No More Cry; Boy Meets Ghost; Maiko Haaaan!!!) and starring Hideaki Ito (Sukiyaki Western Django), Takayuki Yamada (Maiko Haaaan!!!), Yu Kashii (Death Note) and Korean model-turned-actress Minji (A Lush Life), 252: Sign Of Life is a white-knuckle thrill-ride through a volatile world at the mercy of wild and unpredictable meteorological forces.
Film: 252: Sign Of Life
Release date: 10th January 2011
Certificate: 12
Running time: 128 mins
Director: Nobuo Mizuta
Starring: Hideaki Itô, Masaaki Uchino, Takayuki Yamada, Yu Kashii, Minji
Genre: Action/Adventure/Drama/Thriller
Studio: MVM
Format: DVD
Country: Japan
