Unforgiven

I loved the original Clint Eastwood version and this is an excellent retelling. Few people know how much the Japanese frontier of Hokkaido parallels the American west and this story really takes you inside of that. It is a very different story due to cultural and factual differences, but the core tale rings through. I saw this when it first came out and I re-watched it just the other night. If you like action and drama you owe it to yourself to watch this. Every aspect of this movie including story, acting, directing, and editing is near perfect. This is a true hidden gem.

I really wanted to like this Japanese version of the brilliant "Unforgiven" more, but it simply did not measure up to the original.

The Good: Using rural Hokkaido as the backdrop was a smart decision, though I wish there was more focus on the Ainu. They are the island's indigenous people conquered by the Japanese, and their culture suffered greatly. I think this would have made the story much more interesting, especially since the young rebel is half-Ainu.

The Bad: The movie follows the plot of the original almost to the T, and thus suffers for it. There was no need for it, and simply copying the theme of the Amercian version while telling a new story about the Japanese frontier would have made for a much stronger film. There is such a scarcity of good movies about the Ainu that it is a wasted opportunity.

We have already seen lot of Spaghetti Western made by the Italian movie makers. It had not only fortunately enough created several great imitated American Western movies, but also created several famous actors, such as Clint Eastwood, who later became an Oscar Winning director, made the original Unforgiven in 1992. But unfortunately, this Japanese adaptation from it was such a weird scripted Udon or Ramen Western with a very bad screenplay and a very weird historical background. It's almost as absurd and unwatchable like the Korean Kimchi western, The Good the Bad the Weird (2008). Both were made for the morons to kill the time, I, for one, would only stick to the original to avoid brain damage.

Let me start by saying that I am aware of the parallels and similarities between many modern Eastwood westerns and Kurosawa samurai films. I am also a huge fan of Ken Watanabe.

This film falls short because of the directing. Many of the things that made the 1992 cowboy film so great are missing here. Without spoiling it, I think fans of the original will be very disappointed, especially with the ending.

The cinematography is amazing. Ken Watanabe does the best he can. I thought this would have been easy to remake but I was very disappointed.

When a movie is as brilliant as Eastwood's Unforgiven, it's very hard if not impossible to watch its remake with a fresh eye. I tried, but could not succeed. I kept wishing I was watching the original. Not to say it was a bad film, not at all, but there are some major flaws in this movie. First of all, the characters and actors were nowhere as charismatic as in the original. Not that they were bad, but imho they lack the emotional depth and nuance that their predecessors had. While Gene Hackman's role seemed beautifully fleshed out, his Japanese counterpart is merely a psychopath.

The film imitates parts from the original at places were they could have strayed off a bit, and vice versa. Sometimes it felt I was watching a western, just with Japanese actors, while I expected it to be a samourai movie. There are scenes from Unforgiven 1 and 2 with matching color palettes, which I think is a shame. Why not go for a totally different approach? Accentuate the differences, not the similarities. But there are scenes in the original that had a lot of punch (eg the final shootout scene), which have been given a different approach and therefore fail.

Where it succeeds is the beautiful cinematography, and the conclusion of Japanese Will Munny's character. I also like the symbolic use of the elements like rain and snow.

But as said, I'm extremely prejudiced (Eastwood's Unforgiven is one of my favourite movies) and perhaps the viewer who is not familiar with the original will love this one just as well.