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Ghost Canyon

'Django: Special Edition' [Blu-ray]
(Franco Nero, José Canalejas, José Bódalo, et al / 2-Disc Blu-ray / NR / 2021 / Arrow Films UK)

Overview: In this definitive Spaghetti Western, Franco Nero (Keoma, The Fifth Cord) gives a career-defining performance as Django, a mysterious loner who arrives at a mud-drenched ghost town on the Mexico-US border, ominously dragging a coffin behind him.

After saving imperiled prostitute Maria (Loredana Nusciak), Django becomes embroiled in a brutal feud between a racist gang and a band of Mexican revolutionaries.

The film is presented here in an exclusive new restoration with a wealth of extras including the newly restored bonus feature 'Texas, Adios,' which also stars Franco Nero, and was released as Django 2 in several territories.

Blu-ray Verdict: As 1964's A Fistful Of Dollars was a huge hit, director Sergio Corbucci answered with his own Spaghetti Western in 1966, the now-classic 'Django.'

Where Sergio Leone filled his films with beautiful sweeping vistas and made good use of the Spanish locations, Corbucci's look for Django was very nihilistic and bleak as was it's tone.

Filmed in winter, the landscapes are barren and dead and the streets of the town are filled with mud and the sky seems mostly always gray.

The films' heroes are different too as Eastywood's "Joe" is an opportunist who plays two rival gangs against each other in a dangerous game to profit from both.

Franco Nero's Django, on the other hand, is a former soldier who returns to a small town dragging a coffin behind him and seeking vengeance for the loss of a loved one.

Indeed, Django is a man whose heart and soul have been torn out by the Civil War and the murder of his wife and he doesn't care how many have to die before he exacts his revenge on the evil Major Jackson (Eduardo Fajardo) for her death.

And death is indeed what lies within the coffin he takes with him everywhere as Jackson and his men will soon find out. The loner gunslinger Django also plays two gangs against each other for his own gain but, his gain is far more personal then profitable.

The film's graveyard shootout finale is also very bleak and makes one wonder if Corbucci is asking us whether Django's surrounding himself with so much death has made him an outcast amongst the living.

'Django' is a hard and violent tale under Corbucci's direction and Franco Nero's Django is a hard and violent man who, unlike Eastwood's charming anti-hero, is a man on a path to hell and plans on taking as many with him as possible.

His flashes of humanity are brief and seem only directed at the saloon girl Maria, who falls for the dark loner. But, even Maria is not immune to the violence that follows this man wherever he goes.

Django is an interesting entry in the Spaghetti Western genre and seems to be the dark opposite of Leone's series with Eastwood. And as such has earned it's own classic status and is rightfully regarded as one of the genres best examples.

Also included is 'Texas, Adios' (aka 'Django 2') which again stars Franco Nero in the titular role. Like almost every Western starring Nero after Sergio Corbucci's 1966 masterpiece 'Django,' 'Texas, Adios' was marketed as a Django-sequel in Germany and Austria.

Although it has neither anything to do with 'Django,' nor is it anywhere near 'Django' in it's value as one of the genre's highlights, 'Texas, Adios' is still a good Spaghetti Western.

Besides the great Franco Nero, it also features typical Spaghetti Western supporting actors like Luigi Pistilli, Livio Lorenzon and Gino Pernice.

And, despite its allusions to the classic models of Gary Cooper and Jimmy Stewart, it's a spaghetti western at heart, and its heart is cold and cruel.

"Are you tired of living?" (pronounced here as leeeeving), asks Delgado's greasy right hand man, and the answer seems to be a resounding yes!

Sympathetic characters are disposed of with little fanfare and Nero's idealistic younger brother Jim, played by Alberto Dell'Acqua, is taught that becoming a man means becoming immune to killing. This is a Widescreen Presentation (1.85:1) enhanced for 16x9 TVs and comes with the Special Features of:

New restoration from a 4K scan of Django from the original camera negative by Arrow Films
New restoration from a 2K scan of Texas Adios from the original camera negative by Arrow Films
High Definition Blu-ray (1080p) presentations
Uncompressed Mono 1.0 PCM audio
Newly translated English subtitles for the Italian soundtrack
Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing for the English soundtrack
Six double-sided collector's postcards
Double-sided fold-out poster
Limited edition 60-page perfect-bound book featuring new writing on the film by Howard Hughes and Roberto Curti, and original reviews
Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Sean Phillips

DISC 1: DJANGO
Audio commentary by film critic, historian and theorist Stephen Prince
Newly filmed interview with star Franco Nero
Newly filmed interview with assistant director Ruggero Deodato
Newly filmed interview with co-writer Franco Rossetti
Newly filmed interview with Sergio Corbucci s wife Nora Corbucci
Archival interview with co-writer Piero Vivarelli
Archival interview with stuntman and actor Gilberto Galimberti
Discovering Django, newly filmed appreciation by Spaghetti Westerns scholar Austin Fisher
An Introduction to Django by Alex Cox, an archival featurette with the acclaimed director
Gallery of original promotional images from the Mike Siegel Archive
Original trailers

DISC 2 TEXAS ADIOS [LIMITED EDITION EXCLUSIVE]
Audio commentary for by spaghetti western experts C. Courtney Joyner and Henry C. Parke
Newly filmed interview with star Franco Nero
Newly filmed interview with co-star Alberto Dell'Acqua
Newly filmed interview with co-writer Franco Rossetti
Hello Texas!, newly filmed appreciation by Spaghetti Westerns scholar Austin Fisher
Gallery of original promotional images from the Mike Siegel Archive
Original trailer

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