The film itself is Korean, but it's The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly set in 1930s Manchuria. That's the best spaghetti western I've seen since Leone's films.
Beyond geography, the big distinction for me between a western and a spaghetti western is how they challenge the subject matter of a settler-colonial frontier. A traditional western romanticises settler-colonialism while reducing its enemies to crude caricatures of something opposing the civilised society they're building on indigenous graves. Spaghetti westerns subvert that cowboy worship and frontier idealism to attack the nature of the territorial expansion. In this film, technically the cowboy faction would be the Japanese army. The towns are triad-controlled or represent the remnants of the opium trade. It's very hostile to things changing Manchuria, including the protagonists, in a way that a regular western set in Manchuria wouldn't be.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Tk80iXCspM
The film itself is Korean, but it's The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly set in 1930s Manchuria. That's the best spaghetti western I've seen since Leone's films.
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Can't be a spaghetti western if it isn't it*lian...
Beyond geography, the big distinction for me between a western and a spaghetti western is how they challenge the subject matter of a settler-colonial frontier. A traditional western romanticises settler-colonialism while reducing its enemies to crude caricatures of something opposing the civilised society they're building on indigenous graves. Spaghetti westerns subvert that cowboy worship and frontier idealism to attack the nature of the territorial expansion. In this film, technically the cowboy faction would be the Japanese army. The towns are triad-controlled or represent the remnants of the opium trade. It's very hostile to things changing Manchuria, including the protagonists, in a way that a regular western set in Manchuria wouldn't be.
Beautiful marriage of camp and homage.