Yurusarezaru mono

This is a beautiful retelling of Clint Eastwoods classic film. It's stunningly shot, well acted and very immersive. Ken Watanabe is the quintisenial reluctant badass. The only problem I had was with the film's villain. Gene Hackmans charming and terrifying performance is almost reduced to a mustache twirling villain. Like he literally has a mustache, which he twirls. Hackmans original performance is so engaging and effective, because he's so polite and charismatic. You really get the idea that he's a psychopath hiding in plain sight. Sadly the remakes villain falls short of Hackmans high bar. Beyond that, this is one of the better remakes I've ever seen.

What goes around comes around. Just as a fair number of westerns were remakes of classic Japanese Samurai movies so Sang-il Lee's "Unforgiven" is a fairly literal remake of Clint Eastwood's Oscar winner of the same name. Here we may be dealing with samurai but that doesn't disguise the fact that these guys may as well be cowboys and this could be the American West. It's a reasonably exciting and handsome picture, gorgeously shot in widescreen by Norimichi Kasamatsu, but it is also so close to the original it feels almost negligible. Ken Watanabe plays the Eastwood role but it's something of a one-note performance; he lacks Clint's gravitas. This could have been a classic but as it is it's nothing more than a very good copy.

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.

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.

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.