Cinema is Dope

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I hate to throw out the word, “cool”… but … this - has - to - be - the - coolest - image of Kaori Momoi ever! Am I wrong? This could easily be framed against an entire wall. Perfection.

Related Coverage:
::: Review by Todd

Japanese Cinema:
::: Jason Gray
::: Mark Schilling’s Tokyo Ramen
::: Midnight Eye
::: Nippon Cinema
::: Outcast Cinema
::: Ryuganji
::: Toronto J-Film Pow-Wow

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Double pistol action in the macaroni western “Sukiyaki Western Django.”

Twitch Coverage:
::: Review by Todd

::: View MM Listing
::: Visit the MM Blog (full of goodies!!!)

The white clad Genji, led by Yoshitsune and the red clad Heike led by Kiyomori, face off once again in a poor mountain town. Both sides searching for a legendary treasure that may be buried there. A lone gunman, burdened with emotional scars but blessed with incredible shooting skills, drifts into town. Expectations reach boiling point as everyone wonders which gang the gunman will finally decide to join. Dirty tricks, betrayal, desire and love collide as the situation erupts into a final, explosive showdown.

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Quentin Tarantino as Piringo in Takashi Miike’s macaroni western, “Sukiyaki Western Django.”

Tuesday, September 11
11:59 PM
RYERSON

Thursday, September 13
12:30 PM
VARSITY 8

Saturday September 15
09:30 PM
VARSITY 4

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You’re more of a “dragon generation” rather than a “macaroni western
generation, aren’t you?

MIIKE: Yes. There weren’t many macaroni westerns in the theaters when I was growing up but they used to broadcast two to three of them every week on television.. I can’t tell you how many times they aired One Silver Dollar. My mother used to tell me to go to bed, but I usually stayed up and watched them with my parents. My father loved macaroni westerns and he used to buy me toy guns and pistols. My grandfather was a hunter and used to shoot birds with rifles. So the macaroni western was certainly very familiar to me. But having worked in the movie industry for a long time, I never thought that I would be making something like this as a Japanese film.

Neither did we (laughs). How did it come about?

MIIKE: “Toshiaki Nakazawa, a producer at Sedic International, whom I had worked with on The Happiness of Katakuris, asked me if there was any project that I wanted to do. That’s when the words ‘How about a sukiyaki western?’ fell out of my mouth. It’s what they call talking through one’s hat, I guess. But it wasn’t totally groundless. When I was a kid, I used to imagine myself growing up to be a wandering gunman. I don’t remember the specific stories but I was impressed with such things as the cool posture of the gunman, the intensity right before the shoot-out, and the dramatic effect of the music that starts after someone falls to the ground. Those kinds of things were imprinted on my mind. And I thought that anything a child can create in his imagination, surely a movie can bring to life. I think that any other producer would have just dismissed the idea with a laugh but Mr. Nakazawa didn’t. He said it was interesting and went along with the idea. Although he may have said “No” if I had suggested a Sushi Western (laughs).

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