Django Strikes Again

Hey, wait a minute … This is called Django TWO and it was made more than twenty years after Sergio Corbucci's original classic western. Haven't there been at least twenty other sequels in between? Well yes, but apparently this is the only "official" sequel whereas all the others simply cashed in on the popular name and/or image of lone gunfighter Franco Nero. Those darned Italians … they even steal from each other! There's usually one thing you need to know about belated sequels: they suck! Usually, that is, because "Django Strikes Again" is the exception to confirm the rule. It's a very solidly scripted and action-packed adventure that independently stands on its own as one of the greatest Italian movies of the 1980's. Director and co-writer Nello Rossati luckily doesn't come up with an easy rehash of the original, but brings an ambitious and convoluted non-western story with fascinating characters and even more firepower. Django is living a retired life in a monastery, but digs up – literally - his arsenal when a woman begs him to save his own daughter from the hands of the evil slave trader/weapon dealer/jewel robber "El Diablo". This Nazi-inspired madman is the ultimate cult movie villain. He lives on a battleship that is decorated with the decapitated heads of poor suckers that revolted against him, treats his female black household slave like a cheap toy and shoots innocent fisherman in the head for target practice! Anyway, Django is sent to a silver mine to work as a slave, but manages to escape (with the help of the ultra-cool and mega-versatile Donald Pleasance) and finds his old coffin. But this is a sequels and times have modernized, so Django doesn't pull an ordinary coffin behind him anymore but tunes an entire hearse! Go Django, still indescribably cool after 20 years of hiding in a cloister and pretending to be a monk! "Django Strikes Again" is a surprisingly great and stylish movie that doesn't even qualify as a western! The action is almost adapted to the typical 80's South American guerrilla settings, with slavery camps & torrid swamps. Django's hearse is tremendously cool and there are numerous memorable sequences, including the fight within the monastery and the attack on the brothel. Franco Nero looks just as handsome and acts just as cool at age 45 as he did at age 25, but this time he also receives much better and more professional support. The almighty Donald Pleasance is terrific as an enslaved Scottish entomologist whose brains are slowly getting affected by the continuous heat. Even better than Nero and Pleasance is Christopher Connelly as the truly and genuinely despicable "El Diablo". His villainous portrayal surely ranks amongst the best cinematic baddies ever! Connelly passed away shortly after the release of this film, at the young age of 47.

A woman comes to a monastery and tells Django (Franco Nero), who became a monk many years ago, that he has a daughter in San Vicente that was kidnapped by the evil and cruel 'El Diablo' Orlowsky (Christopher Connelly), a former Hungarian soldier that uses his battleship to abduct men and boys to work as slaves in his silver mines and girls to be sold to brothels. Django follows his ship, but is captured and sent to labor work. He escapes with the support of the etymologist Professor Gunn (Donald Pleasance) and promises to return to rescues all the slaves. He goes to a cemetery where he digs his machine gun, preserved in a coffin buried under a tomb with the name "Django". He brings hell to Earth chasing Orlowsky and his gang.

"Django 2: Il Grande Ritorno" is the sequel of 1966 "Django" and is underrated in IMDb. The violent story is great and has some of excellent sequences, such as when Django is in the cemetery digging his machine gun; or when he schedules the undertaker to a future work; or riding the funeral stagecoach with the machine gun on the back. Christopher Connelly, in his last work, makes an excellent villain. Western is not my favorite genre, but I liked this movie a lot. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Django - A Volta do Vingador" ("Django – The Returno of the Avenger")

At last an official sequel to Sergio Corbucci's classic DJANGO and what a return! Franco Nero reprises the role that made him famous, and it fits him like an old glove. Nello Rossati directs the film with some flair, improving on his previous film with Nero the wacky TOP LINE. The late Christopher Connelly turns in another great performance, and Donald Pleasence is a treat in his amusing role as Ben Gunn. Lots of action and plenty of style make for an enjoyable film and this is certainly that...see it!

N.B. Try to get hold of the Anchor Bay double DVD set, it includes the missing prologue featuring spaghetti western favourite William Berger.

The only official (but certainly not the best) and up to now the latest sequel to Sergio Corbucci's 1966 masterpiece Django, "Django 2: Il Grande Ritorno" aka. Django Strikes Again, is definitely not worthy of the original, but it is still an entertaining Action/Spaghetti Western genre mix.

Django, who calls himself "Brother Ignatius" now, has turned his back to violence and become a monk, living in a Mexican monastery, when a fatally ill former mistress tells him that he has a daughter and asks him to take care of the child after she's gone. The lady dies a short time later, and the daughter, along with other villagers, has been kidnapped by a ruthless gang of former Hungarian soldiers under the leadership of villainous Orlowski, a man who brutally enslaves Mexican civilians to drudge in a silver mine and forces women and little girls into prostitution, and is therefore referred to as "El Diablo" by the poor population. In order to rescue his daughter, "Brother Ignatius" has to return to his violent former ways and become "Django" again.

The story is not very imaginative, and the locations are a little bit too tropical for a Western, even though the movie is set entirely in Mexico, but Franco Nero's performance makes up for the movie's weaknesses. Made in 1987, 21 years after the original, "Django Strikes Again" is a mixture of a Spaghetti Western and a typical eighties action movie. It is certainly fun to watch, but it's certainly not a masterpiece like the original. Django Strikes Again may be the only official sequel, but it's certainly not the best. I've seen "Django" sequels much better than this, but I've also seen much worse. 6 out of 10 stars because of Franco Nero, the one and only original Django, who saves the movie.

This film is very interesting. Many people will scoff at it's production values, but when you consider it's era, it's really not that far off from its contemporaries. Many people make the mistake of comparing this movie to the Rambo franchise.

I suppose this is based on the way the Italians chose to market the film (with Nero with a headband and giant veiny muscles). But the more appropriate comparison should be with Arnold Schwartzenegger's "Commando".

In both films, a burly guy trying to forget his violent past has his daughter kidnapped and is forced to kill hundreds of ethnic stereotyped Hispanic folks to get her back. It's even got exploding guard towers and guys getting stabbed in Arnie "stick around!" style!!!