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.
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.