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.
