THE MOST VIOLENT WESTERN EVER MADE
Generally considered to be the most violent Western ever made, DJANGO KILL (aka If You Live, Shoot!) is a surreal, gothic vision of indubitable pedigree. Directed by Fellini associate Giulio Questi (director of Death Laid An Egg and assistant director of La Dolce Vita), the film was co-written and edited by Bernardo Bertolucci's regular writing partner and editor Franco Arcali (Last Tango In Paris; 1900; also the co-writer of Sergio Leone's Once Upon A Time In America and Michelangelo Antonioni's editing collaborator on Zabriskie Point) and stars Tomas Milian (Traffic; The Yards; Amistad), Ray Lovelock (The Living Dead At The Manchester Morgue; Fidder On The Roof) and Piero Lulli (My Name Is Nobody).
Now fully restored from the original Italian negative materials DJANGO KILL is being released on DVD by Argent Films in the most complete version of the film available, including, for the first time, two graphically violent scenes never before seen in the UK.
Milian stars as The Stranger, a half-breed bandit left for dead by his double-crossing gang members, who have made off with the gold they have stolen from a US army detachment. Rising from the grave, he sets about seeking revenge, aided by a pair of mystic Native Americans and armed only with a pistol and a supply of golden bullets. The Stranger's quest leads him to a strange town known only as The Unhappy Place'. There, he finds himself plunged headlong into a bizarre world of gruesome torture, mindless violence, sexual depravity and unfathomable madness. Discovering all but one of his former accomplices have already been executed by the townsfolk, The Stranger becomes caught up in the conflict between the locals and a crazy rancher, Mr. Sorrow (Roberto Camardiel), and his band of muchachos', all of whom are desperate to lay their hands on the missing gold.
Questi's masterpiece is certainly the Spaghetti Western genre's only psychedelic, gothic, political, sado-masochistic entry. Radical and stylistically and graphically groundbreaking, the film has as much in common with the films of Luis Bunuel as it does with those of Sergio Leone. Hailed by director Alex Cox as "one of the handful of great Italian westerns" (and acknowledged as the inspiration for his own "Straight To Hell"), DJANGO KILL is an unforgettable audio-visual experience that has to be seen to be believed.
