Whilst he'd made a brief appearance as a gyrating Elvis enthusiast in short-lived sitcom The Golden Palace, Quentin Tarantino's major acting debut was his own project Reservoir Dogs. He went on to become one of the handful of directors as recognizable in front of the lens as behind it. Having given American movie culture a thorough going-over in Pulp Fiction and Jackie Brown, Tarantino did a solid for Takashi Miike and his Japanese Spaghetti Western mash up Sukiyaki Western Django. This dusty revenge actioner from 2007 starred Hideaki Ito in the Clint Eastwood mould, using his gun to help a local prostitute against the backdrop of clan warfare. Miike put mate Quentin at the centre of the dynamic opening, where the butt-shut-down master played Piringo. Tarantino adopted the name Django for his own bullet-laden race relations effort in 2012.