Unforgiven

The story is esspentially the same as Eastwood's Unforgiven, without the political correctness.

It's a bit slower but that doesnt make it bad. I truly think the handful of clowns wo gave this low ratings don't know how to read subtitles and are longing for an Ironman 4.

This is a beautiful movie. Well shot.

And the sword play is great

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.

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.

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.

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.