Here’s the cold open for Sukiyaki Western Django:

Wikipedia has the best review, from some Torontodite:

This is a crazy, fast-paced spectacle of a movie, with some stunning action scenes and gorgeously colourful production design. The problem is, it’s an empty spectacle. Miike pays homage to the spaghetti westerns of Sergio Leone and Sergio Corbucci, but forgets that those directors genuinely loved the kitschy pop culture they emulated instead of regarding it with smug superiority. Kill Bill was a comic book, yes, but Tarantino allowed his actors room to create characters the audience could care about, while Miike, by having his cast speak awkward English, is perversely trying to keep their characters two-dimensional and keep the audience distant…Ultimately, Sukiyaki Western Django is an exhausting experience. This is not a film you become involved in – it isn’t funny or engaging. Rather, it’s one that you’re supposed to watch with a cool, hip sense of ironic detachment, sitting in the audience and saying to yourself, “Aren’t I cool for laughing at this?” How could anyone enjoy such a self-conscious time at the movies?

PoMo: You’re doing it wrong. Oh, and his spelling of “colourful” reminds me — I’m giving up on Canadian spellings. They only cause me stress.

Sukiyaki — A Japanese peasant dish.
Django — A classic Spaghetti Western.

Spaghetti Western/Sukiyaki Western, get it? A Samurai flick based on a Western, from the era when Westerns were based on Samurai flicks, get it?

That’s why all the Japanese actors speak English. That’s why Tarantino puts on the fake accent, even. And at the end that’s why the little boy moves to Italy and lives under the name Django.

I have a theory that the global cultural consciousness is starting its natural shift East. This is an Asian film maker making a movie “in the Western style”. It’s a re-appropriation.