Back in the 1980's, there was a manga entitled Fist of the North Star, which was set in a post-apocalyptic, Mad Max-style wasteland.

Of course, the wastes are controlled by roving gangs of sadistic arseholes, and at one point they do the same thing to a girl and her father that happened to Harmonica and his brother in Once Upon A Time In The West: noose around the dad's neck, and he's balanced upon the girl's shoulders until she can no longer hold him up.

I never, until now, made the connection, but the manga was written by Okamura Yoshiyuki under the pseudonym "Buronson" (which is how the Japanese would phonetically spell "Bronson"). Fist of the North Star is basically an enormous martial arts tribute to spaghetti westerns and post-nuke films, and Buronson would have been in his twenties when Once Upon A Time... came out.

Not sure if that scene would qualify as a rip-off or an homage, but either way, it's awesome to make a connection like that thanks to someone else's writing. :)