Django Kill... If You Live, Shoot!

Django Kill... If You Live, Shoot!

Surreal western dealing with various people trying to get their hands on a bunch of gold. The plot has The Stranger some how surviving being shot down by his compatriots after a gold robbery. Rescued by a couple of Indians who want to know what its like on the other side of life, he trails the men who tried to kill him to a town where only one of them remains alive. At this point the film becomes a game as various people try to get their hands on the gold. (For give me for being vague- and only covering the first half hour of plot, but this movie is so unique one should see it on ones own.) Off beat to say the least, this movie has a cruel streak a mile wide. No one is nice, everyone is evil to some degree. And yes there are lots of gay cowboys. Its an unpleasant time in an unpleasant town. This is a one of a kind film that is not for all tastes. At times it plays more like a horror western rather than as a spaghetti western (the end of one person is out of a horror movie. I'm not sure what I think of it. Certainly its well made but it is rather unpleasant. I can't see wanting to see it a second time. The pacing isn't to my tastes and its two hour running time felt even longer. Was it worth seeing? Yes, its a good if nasty film. I don't know what I would have made of the film had I stumbled on to it unaware of what it contained. Certainly I don't know how much more out there you can go with out a film ceasing to be a western. Spaghetti western fans and those who like off beat films are invited to take a look. The rest are advised to proceed with caution. 6 out of 10 for the unpleasantness and the uncertainty of a second viewing.

There are good moments and touches of atmosphere in this western but the plot's too muddled to pull things together. Tomas Milian seems to have been cast for his "beefcake" appeal and, sure enough, he winds up stripped to a loincloth and tied to a cross inside a jail-cell for a bit of torture that's obviously meant to evoke religious parallels. (The question is, where would a man in frontier America get such a peculiar undergarment?)

DJANGO KILL is one excellent Spaghetti Western. The only problem with the film is that it loses steam by the end and it's a shame because if the direction, the pacing and the story had remained the same throughout the movie as during the first hour, this would have been a masterpiece. The direction is truly unique and there's something contemporary about the whole first hour. But when the action starts resembling a soap opera of sorts, the greatness of the beginning is almost completely gone. But even if the second half is not as spectacular as the first half, DJANGO KILL is still one of the best Euro westerns I've ever seen. I've watched the Blue Underground DVD several times now. 8 out of 10.

Kill, if you live shoot! (1967) is a crazy western. I've never seen such a weird film (besides El Topo). Tomas Milian plays a double crossed man who is saved by two indians. They make him gold bullets so he can avenge his dead friends and punish those that did him wrong. That's just the beginning! I heard stories about this film but I never believed them until after I saw the movie. I was surprised by the authenticity in some of the situations that the characters were put through, but others were so out of placed. This is a strange hybrid of action, horror, comedy and drama. I loved this movie, It'll grow on you after repeat viewings. I strongly recommend this film. A+ P.S. Unlike Django, the English and Italian soundtracks are nearly identical, no loss in the translation.

It first seems it's going to be a standard "hunt-down-for-revenge" western, but then half an hour in it takes a surprising turn. In fact, at first you don't know where it's going, and it's a lot of fun trying to figure it out. There's certainly a lot going on (various subplots), and it's directed in a slightly surreal style that keeps you interested. In the end, the movie bites off more than it chews - some things seem unresolved at the end (where did Django's Indian friends go, for example?), though since I saw the 110 minute version instead of the 117 minute version, maybe some things got lost in the cut. Though it's not perfect, spaghetti western fans will find enough to make it worth their while.

Those crazy Italians will slap any name on any film if it means it will sell, and even though this film doesn't follow on from Sergio Corbucci's original Django film, doesn't star Franco Nero in the lead role and isn't a continuation of the same story; it still carries the name Django. This will no doubt lead to disappointment for people who are hoping that this film is a sequel, but surely that disappointment won't last long as this film is a sensational Spaghetti Western in its own right! The film is basically a retread of the same ground covered in Sergio Leone's masterpiece 'A Fistful of Dollars' and sees a mysterious drifter embroiled in a battle inside a small western town. The film starts off with Mexican (who is Django in everything but name) crawling out of a grave. From there, we see via flashback that he and a bunch of his fellow Mexicans were double-crossed by their American compatriots after excavating a load of gold. Naturally, Django isn't very pleased about this and decides to follow the Americans in order to get his bloody revenge. Thomas Milian takes the lead role and it has to be said that he does rather well with it. For obvious reasons, he's always going to get compared with Franco Nero, and while the performance doesn't have the same rough pitch as Nero's drifter did, Milian works so well in the lead role because he's manly, but also somewhat vulnerable; which makes the whole thing more believable. It's ironic that Italians tend to make better looking westerns than Americans, but this film helps to prove that irony. The sets do look rather cheap, but at the same time they ensure that Django Kill feels very much like it has been shot in the Wild West, and the environment brilliantly fits the characters. Probably the main reason why this film works so well is because the characters are well done. They're not exactly Shakespearian, but their motives and actions are always believable and because the supporting cast is so well done, it means that the situation that Django finds himself in the centre of is always interesting and engaging. On the whole, this is an excellent Spaghetti Western and one that comes highly recommended to fans of this sort of film.

A Mexican outlaw (Tomas Milian) steals gold from a stagecoach along with some other Mexicans and Americans. The Americans double-cross the Mexicans and leave them all for dead. The one outlaw survives and looks for revenge in this film that has jack-all to do with the original Django (the distributors only named it "Django Kill..." to squeeze a few more bucks out of more gullible people. What we have here is a slightly below standard western that's too surreal to be that enjoyable. and as such I can't really recommend it to all but the most hardcore Spahetti Western fan. My Grade: D+ Blue Underground DVD Extras: Part of BU's Spaghetti Western Collection. Uncut; "Django Tell" (20 minute documentary); Poster & Stills gallery; Talent Bios for Guilo Questi & Tomas Milian; Theatrical Trailer 3 Easter Eggs: Highlight the hidden gun on the extras page for Trailers for "Django", "Run, Man, Run", and "A Man Called Blade"; Highlight the hand on the main menu to get interviews on the formation of a rock group; and a hidden gun in the Language/Subtitles menu leads to the story of how Tomas Milian almost got killed for being anti-communist

Giulio Questi's "Se Sei Vivo Spara" aka. "Django Kill... If You Live, Shoot!" of 1967 is a great and very violent Spaghetti Western, and easily one of the genre's most twisted films. After The Stranger (played by the great Tomas Milian) is double crossed by his fellow bandits, he seeks revenge, and comes to a little town inhabited by folks who are anything but hospitable towards strangers. But not only are the towns inhabitants slightly psychopathic leisure time vigilantes with a strong fondness for lynchings and ultra violence, the area is also tyrannized by a sleazy fat landowner and his gang of gay cowboys. Rightly a cult flick, "Django Kill... If You Live, Shoot!" is a great mixture of Horror Exploitation and Spaghetti Western, coming along with a great theme song by Ivan Vandor. The violence in this film is very graphical - lynchings, torture, mutilation, and a scalping, "Django Kill" got it all. And the movie is pretty surreal. Right in the beginning of the movie, Tomas Milian is crawling out of a mass grave, and saved by two Indians who make him bullets out of gold. Furthermore the movie has some other very bizarre elements, like a guy who rests his feet on a child, or a talking parrot for example. The acting is very good, especially Tomas Milian's performance is great (as always), the supporting cast includes Piero Lulli, and I also thought that Roberto Carmadiel, who plays the villainous landowner Mr. Sorrow did a great job. The cinematography and the locations are great, and so is the theme song, which I can't get out of my head. Like many other movies with Django in their title, "Django Kill, If You Live, Shoot!" has little to nothing to do with Sergio Corbucci's 1966 masterpiece "Django", however it is one of the best of these movies. Furthermore, this is not actually a Django movie, since it doesn't originally have the name Django in its title. "Se Sei Vivo Spara" was just given its Django-name in German and English, due to the success of Corbucci's masterpiece. If I counted this as a Django movie, however, I would have to say that this is my second favorite after the original. A great, gory and surreal film, "Se Sei Vivo Spara" is a must-see for us fans of Spaghetti Westerns and Tomas Milian. 9/10

Tomas Milian stars in this dark Spaghetti Western that starts beautifully and then devolves into a meandering mess with the occasional scene of gore thrown in to liven it up. Instead of focusing on the main character (who is never referred to as Django...greedy distributors) the film gets lost in boring sub-plots and in turn he is so short-changed in terms of screen time and character development that he becomes a non-entity (and when Tomas Milian is a non-entity in a Spaghetti you've got a problem). There are occasional flashes of surrealism that have a real artfulness to them, but unfortunately you've got to slog through scene after scene of crap just to get to them. Skip this one and be glad.