So I just got back from seeing Django Unchained this evening at the Alamo Drafthouse. Fun time with some wonderful friends that make the movie even better. While I was watching the movie this evening, which the review will be coming shortly, I was excited to see Franco Nero in the movie making a nice little cameo during a bar scene. It’s a nice little nod to the man with the same name as our intrepid hero. Now Django Unchained is not an retelling of Django from 1966, but Tarantino did take a few flourishes with the movie and also a badass name for a hero.
Man, how come Westworld doesn’t exist? A world in which you can live out your fantasy that just happens to be inhabited by robots. I guess it is like Fantasy Island, but you know, with robots, which are cool. Well it was a cool idea in theory until Westworld showed us that robots can become the sentient killing machines they truly are, so it kind of ruined the fun of going to a nerdtastic Fantasy Island. I got to admit though, Westworld is a pretty interesting science fiction about rich people going to live our their fantasies and shoot robots for fun and then having the very robots go ape shit on them. Also Yul Brenner is a bad ass bald cowboy robot.
There are particular actors that just seem to fit a little too well in certain movies. It’s like they were made to be living in the genre that inhabit on screen which adds to the precious realism that I covet in film. The western genre is one that I have a longstanding enjoyment of, no matter the subject matter. So while we equate westerns with gunfights, lots of brooding from a disdained hero and more gunfights, the harshness of the open plains leaves a bit more room to look upon the land and oneself. Appaloosa is more than just gunfights and killing, but a chance to build and flesh out the characters in the harsh western setting.
I have wanted to talk about this movie for a while now and while this is a 10-day long Christmas post stretch I am conducting right now, I can wiggle this movie into the rotation of holiday movies. Death, violence, revenge, despair, isolation, anger, and a myriad of other depressing words are not the typical holiday movie. Actually those words describe no holiday in any country. No the only thing that this movie has connecting it to the holiday of Christmas is that Dec. 25th is used as an ultimatum day for one man, either find the killer or watch you brother hang. Not something of an uplifting story for Christmas, but then again this movie is as brutal as they come.
If you know me well enough, I do enjoy the Western genre. The gun fights in particular when our intrepid gunslingers have to make one final stand against a wave of cannon fodder bad guys before they get a chance to ride off into the sunset are what make most of the film memorable. Sure it’s superficial to just like gun fights, but I am American and that’s how we role. But Westerns also have certain flair to their story line where we get a stilted back story for our “hero”, not knowing what makes them tick and if they lean towards being noble or villainous. So the movie The Way of the Gun is a “interesting”, no wait, enjoyable take on the western genre with some hints of Butch Cassidy and Sundance Kid protagonists who aren’t really likeable, but its a movie that relishes in the violence that it portrays. Sure it’s crude and more stylish than anything else, but as a first and sadly, only film from Director and Writer Christopher McQuarrie, it’s a good cult film that some will enjoy and others might go, “the gun battles were cool”.
Boy am I happy to be talking about these two trailers this week. Frankly I can never get enough of western films and Blackthorn looks to brings back Butch Cassidy in an interesting way with Blackthorn. Last is a trailer from the Tsui Harks latest creation starring Andy “Motherfucking” Lau as a Sherlock Holmes style detective in Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame.
Blackthorn:
If you have never seen Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, you are missing out on of the best western films out there. So if you have a little knowledge about the legend of Butch and Sundance, you know that they were supposedly killed in a standoff with the Bolivian army. Blackthorn tells the story of how Butch Cassidy survived the standoff and is living out his old days under the name of James Blackthorn. Sam Shepard (awesome) plays Blackthorn as he sets out on one last journey to to America to see his family before he dies. Along the way home he gets himself mixed up with a young criminal and has to embark on one last gunfight. I am stoked for this movie to make its way to my neck of the woods. As much as I loved Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, having a continuing story about Butch is a great plot device and story to be told. The film looks gorgeous and the pace of the trailer has a nice mix between gun play action and some long stretches of Butch reflecting on his life. If you like westerns, this is going to be your kind of movie.
Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame:
So ignore the dubstep soundtrack for a second, while cool and paced well with the trailer, focus on what you just saw. If you aren’t familiar with Tsui Hark’s work, well let me tell you that this looks like one of his most ambitious and visually stunning movies to date. Mixing mind bending action scenes and unique, over the top visual style, and great story about a Sherlock Holmes style character and you got an exciting film on your hands. Tsui Hark is bringing the big guns with Detective Dee and it seems like it will be an incredible ride with Andy Lau playing the decorated detective trying to solve the mystery behind 7 murders for the empress. High-wire kung fu, fast pacing and unique flair not seen in a lot of Chinese films, means Nick is going to chomp at the bit when this comes anywhere close to my theater area.
I haven’t given Western movies their due here on Another Plot Device. It’s not that I don’t love them, it’s that there aren’t a lot of people I know who are fans of the genre. I think Westerns get this bad rap about being slow pacing and sometimes dull. Sure the subject matter of man wandering the Southwest and contemplating his life on horseback may not seem like a good time. Hell even some of the more action paced Westerns are kind of lame when you see the gun fights and clutching of the chest when the our intrepid gunslinger takes down an Indian or some guy in a black trench coat.
Now on the other side of the coin, when you mention Westerns and what makes them iconic, whether or not they watch Westerns, is the showdown in the middle of town. The gunfight, the quick-draw, and waiting till the clock strikes noon when both men or women can draw their weapon freely. It’s all about being the fastest gun in the west and being able to smoothly draw your weapon and drop your opponent. I dig that aspect of Westerns, seeing the stare down between two people as they are both close to death and their passing will be by the hands of their opponent. The tension swells, the clock inches closer to noon, and then in an instant, it’s all over. This is where The Quick and The Dead comes into play…
I am in the mood for a little western today. Western films to me always seemed like the American answer to a lot of Samurai films. Both genres usually deal with a lone gunman as opposed to a lone swordsman. You usually have an oppressive sheriff or rival gang plaguing a small western town. In samurai movies you get oppressive lords or rogue ronin warriors terrorizing a small village. A lot of the parallels in these genre movies is more of a product of each culture that it was developed. So as with every genre of film out there, the chance of genres being mashed together is always an exciting prospect. Sukiyaki Western Django is a melding of both the Samurai and Western genres, with a big mix of over the top gun play and classic spaghetti western tropes.
Now Sukiyaki isn’t the first movie to do this Asian take on the Western genre. South Korea produced a kick-ass version of The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly with their own The Good, The Bad, and The Weird. I also covered the Thai throwback movie Tears of the Black Tiger, which was a mixture of spaghetti western and classical Thai action movies of the 60′s. What I love about these Asian takes on the spaghetti western genre is that they have absolutely nothing to lose in terms of what they can do with the genre. They can throw ridiculous shootout scenes, over the top villains and unique backgrounds to make their take on the genre their own.
The story of Sukiyaki is pretty straightforward in terms of the western genre. The backdrop of the movie is centered around an actual historical feud between two warring clans in Japan, the Genji and Heikie clans. So movie the movie forward to include it in the Western setting, you have two clans fighting over a particular province. A nameless gunman waltz into town and decides to help a local prostitute to get revenge on the warring gangs for the crimes they have committed. Naturally this gunman helps out, he intervenes in the gangs war and finally gets swept up in the huge battle.
Pretty cut and dry in terms of story line, but what the movies lacks in intricate story telling, the movie makes up for in crazy action scenes. If there is one thing that director, cult film icon Takashi Miike, can do and that is over the top violence and action.
Sukiyaki is an incredible spectacle of action set piece after action set piece. Miike takes the spaghetti western genre and just amps it up with ridiculous guns, samurai sword combat and just general mayhem. The battles that takes place between both faction just progresses to a point where it become a video game and you just wanna pick up a controller and join the fray. Overall it is the action that is the big focal point of the movie. The setting and background set pieces are wonderful to look at and have a very simplistic, but effective western look to it.
My biggest complaint of the movie though is the acting. Miike made the weird choice to have all their native Japanese actors and actresses speak in English, not Japanese. What you get in the movie is just choppy and garbled line delivery from most of the actors. They are not native English speakers, so when the movie is an homage to spaghetti westerns and it includes certain western phrases, it is not effective in the least. Why Miike decided to go this route with shooting the movie is lost on me. They do provide subtitles throughout the movie, so not sure why they didn’t just have the actors speak Japanese.
If you can get past the fact that the movie is spoken in English, when clearly it shouldn’t be, this is an incredibly enjoyable movie. If you love westerns and action flicks, this film delivers it and more. I love the mix of gun play and sword play when it comes to the final action scenes. I think Miike does a great job in making a fun and funky western movie and always adds his little touch of flair to the movie. Put it in your Netflix list and sit back and enjoy some crazy western movie.
After watching the trailer for this Thai film, you probably have a lot of questions. I certainly did after first viewing the movie. Mainly the question was “What the hell did I just watch?” This is understandable really as for most people, we are only familiar with Thai movies that involve some sort of fighting or horror themes to them…really though just the fighting themes as evident by the breakout Ong Bak movies. But this has to be one of the most unique films/homages/parody to ever really come out of the Thailand, at least from what I have seen in my movie viewing time.
So what exactly is this movie? Well from the dialogue free trailer, this is a melodramatic spaghetti western. Now when i say parody and homage, it’s not the homage to contemporary spaghetti westerns done by Sergio Leone or Sam Peckinpah, but homages to older Thai movies of the 1950s. I am no expert of Thai films, so I read up on what the director was influenced by when he made this movie. Apparently during the 60s, cowboys were a very prominent figure in Thai cinema. There were big action movies (in Thailand) that had many western style shootouts.
