In the late 1950s and early '60s, the Japanese studio Nikkatsu had great success with its "borderless action (mukokuseki action)" films. The best known was the nine-part "Wataridori (Birds of Passage)" series (1959-62) starring Akira Kobayashi as a drifter who has most of the accouterments of a Western hero, including a horse, guitar and trusty bullwhip. He rides into a remote town or ranch, helps the locals fight various bad guys, wins the love of a local maiden (played in all but one episode by Ruriko Asaoka) and also gains an ally (always played by Joe Shishido) in one of the baddies.
Although these films were set in contemporary Japan, they had little to do with any known reality. Shishido told me his name for them was "miso Westerns" and he was proud of the fact they predate the far more famous spaghetti Westerns of Italy.
So Takashi Miike's new Eastern Western "Sukiyaki Western Django" has many local precedents, though he claims he drew his inspiration from those spaghetti Westerns (usually called "macaroni Westerns" here) that he watched as a boy with his father.
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