East meets western in 'Sukiyaki Western Django'

 

By Chris Betros
http://www.japantoday.com/jp/newsmaker/415

 

Quentin Tarantino, center, a man of many words, with director Tak

 

TOKYO — Japanese director Takashi Miike is about the last person you’d expect to make a western in English, but he has never been one to do the ordinary. Miike, whose films such as “Ichi The Killer” and “Full Metal Yakuza” are known for their graphic violence and explicit sex scenes, revisits the wild west in a Japanese setting in the English-language “Sukiyaki Western Django,” featuring an all-Japanese cast and a guest appearance by Quentin Tarantino.

 

Currently, the Japanese film industry is too conservative, so I wanted to do something totally new,” said Miike, wearing his trademark sunglasses. “And the cast for this project are all people who can go against the system.” Filming began in Yamagata last October and finished in June. The Japanese cast includes Hideaki Ito, Kaori Momoi, Yusuke Iseya and Yoshino Kimura. Veteran singer Saburo Kitajima performs the famous title song (in Japanese).

 

Set several centuries after the 12th-century Dannoura wars, “Sukiyaki Western Django” is based on Sergio Corbucci’s 1966 spaghetti western of the same name, starring Franco Nero. The Genji and Heike clans are facing off in a town with a buried treasure legend. A lone gunman (Ito) comes to town and finds himself caught between the two factions. The blend of comedy and violence features gunmen with punkish haircuts shooting it out in front of Shinto “torii” gates, in saloons and on the plains, not to mention a guy with a Gatling gun in a coffin.

 

Tarantino’s involvement began when he got a letter and a script from Miike, asking him if he’d like to be in the film. A longtime Japanese movie buff, Tarantino, 44, was familiar with Miike’s work and invited him to the U.S. set of his film “Death Proof,” where they talked it over.

 

At the end of the day, I was so flattered that I couldn’t say no. He’s one of my favorite directors,” said Tarantino who plays a character named Piringo. “I’m the Eastwood-esque character, but unlike Clint, I am a gunman of many, many words. I get to wear cool costumes and do a fast draw. It doesn’t get any better than that. Isn’t that why we are all actors? One of the things about this film is its childlike innocence to it. We could all be eight years old and doing this in our backyards and having a whale of a time.”

 

Miike made a bold decision to film the entire movie in English, bringing in a dialogue coach to help the cast, most of whom could not speak much English. “For this movie, we used Japanese English, not the English perfectly spoken in the United States or in the UK,” he said. “If this is accepted, then Japanese English will come to be known as something very cool.”

 

Momoi, who speaks passable English, said “Django” shows the world that Japanese actors can make movies in English, adding that she hoped it wouldn’t “lose” to “Memoirs of a Geisha” (which relied on Chinese actresses to portray Japanese). In “Django,” Momoi plays a grandmother who returns to her old profession of a killer. “Tarantino’s character is my lover. It was so much fun. I get to use four guns. There’s wire action and I ride horses, too.”

 

Momoi said she also stuck to the script, which is unusual for her. “Normally, I improvise and change the dialogue around. They say I change a steak into a hamburger,” she laughed. “But it’s harder to ad-lib in English.”

 

Ito said he jumped into the project. “I practiced English, horse riding and gun handling. I’m already looking forward to a sequel so I don’t waste my skills.”

 

The whole experience was an eye-opener for Tarantino. “I always wanted to be in a Japanese film, to see what it is like on set and how different it is. I am so inspired that I am thinking of doing a companion piece to be called ‘Macaroni Samurai Eastern Zatoichi.’ Miike will be in it,” he joked.

 

The big question now is how the film will be received upon its release on Sept 15. Before then, it will be shown at the Venice and Toronto film festivals.  “This is an awesome film and I’m sure it will please everyone in the world,” Miike said.

 

 

August 22, 2007

 

 

 

Spaghetti goes sukiyaki as Western heads East

http://www.enews.ma/spaghetti-goes_i55558_5.html

 

TOKYO (AFP) - If old cowboy flicks were really inspired by tales of Japan's samurai knights, as some would have it, what would happen if a samurai-era saga took its cue from the Wild West?

 

Quentin Tarantino (C) film director Takashi Miike (L) and actress Kaori Momoi (© AFP - Yoshikazu Tsuno)

The answer, in the vision of one of Japan's most controversial directors, is a medieval Japan of gun-slinging tough guys in Stetson hats duking it out next to Shinto-style "torii" gates.

 

In a twist to the "Spaghetti" or "Macaroni" Westerns produced by Italian studios, director Takashi Miike has filmed a "Sukiyaki Western" with a cameo appearance by a fellow maestro of gore-chic, Quentin Tarantino.

 

"Sukiyaki Western Django" is loosely inspired by Sergio Corbucci's classic 1966 Spaghetti Western "Django" -- but set after Japan's 12th-century Genpei clan war, which was recounted in the epic "Tale of the Heike."

 

Miike said he hoped to turn Hollywood formulas on their head and draw global interest in Japanese cinema. He shot the film entirely in English, forcing some of the Japanese cast members to head for a crash course.

 

"I've seen the Macaroni Westerns and I think the original inspiration was the Japanese movies at the time," Miike, wearing his trademark dark sunglasses, told a news conference Monday to mark the end of shooting.

 

"And I think that we can find universal themes in the Tale of the Heike," he said.

 

Miike is often compared -- or contrasted -- with his more famous compatriot "Beat" Takeshi Kitano, another chronicler of the samurai era and the bloody gangster underworld.

 

"I am convinced that we have made something awesome, a Japanese movie that will please everyone in the world," Miike said.

 

 

Quentin Tarantino (L) and Japanese actress Kaori Momoi (© AFP - Yoshikazu Tsuno)

 

 

Miike is best known for 2001's "Ichi the Killer" about a gangster living out his sadistic fantasies, many of them targetting women. The film was banned in some cinemas in Japan and abroad for its grisly violence.

 

Tarantino -- whose "Kill Bill" draws liberally from Spaghetti Westerns and Hong Kong kung fu films -- said he agreed to play the cameo role because he considered Miike "one of the greatest directors living today."

 

"To be such a cool character, doing fast draws, wearing a cool costume, it just doesn't get any better than that," the "Pulp Fiction" director said.

 

"There's a childlike innocence to it. We could all be eight years old and doing this in our backyards and just having a whale of a time," Tarantino said.

 

Miike's film, to put it mildly, does not worry about anachronisms.

 

Set "a few hundred years" after the Genpei War's decisive 1185 Battle of Dannoura, which led to Japan's Kamakura era, the movie features men with punkish hairdos who blow to bits bottles of liquor at a saloon.

 

The film, which comes to cinemas in September, is set during a gold rush in the dusty, barren village of "Utah" -- which, in Japanese, means "field of hot water."

 

A gunman, played by Japanese star Hideaki Ito, arrives under the torii gate to delve into gangland score-settling.

 

"I couldn't speak English, so it was difficult," Ito said of being presented with the script. "But someone said it was impossible for Japanese to shoot Westerns so I insisted I wanted to do it."

 

With some notable exceptions, Japan, the world's second largest box office, has few actors in Hollywood, partly because not many feel comfortable filming a movie in English.

 

Kaori Momoi, one of the film's female leads who also appeared in Hollywood's "Memoirs of a Geisha," said she finds it more difficult to ad lib in English.

 

"If the way Japanese actors speak English comes to be accepted, then it will add to Japanese actors' range," she said.

 

Miike said he told the actors to speak English as best they could.

 

"For this movie, we used Japanese English, not the English perfectly spoken in the United States or in the UK," he said. "If this is accepted, then Japanese English will come to be known as something very cool."

 

 

Published: 06/12/2007 at 03:13:35 GMTSource : AFP

 

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