SIFF Movie Review - Unforgiven

Sometimes, I feel like the Metallica song, "Unforgiven". So when presented the opportunity to select this Japanese remake of the Clint Eastwood version for one of my six-pack of SIFF movies, I said hell yes!

In the theater, we were challenged by the host. One half was to research, locate, and re-do a Western movie into a Samaurai movie... my half was to research, locate and re-do a Samaurai movie into a western.

Challenge ACCEPTED! In the mean time, here's a review that I boosted from another writer for Unforgiven.

Westerns have traditionally borrowed from Japanese legend (The Magnificent Seven reworking Seven Samurai etc.) so now it's time to repay the compliment with this handsome translation of Clint Eastwood's Oscar-winner from Korean-Japanese film-maker Lee Sang-il. Set on the northernmost island of Japan at the dawn of the Meiji era (the time period matches that of the original), the narrative unfolds as before; a bounty offered on the heads of two men who assaulted and scarred a young woman draws vigilantes from afar. Ken Watanabe steps into Clint's Bill Munny boots as Jubei Kamata, a retired warrior whose promise to abandon the sword has been weakened by the death of his wife. Teaming up with an ageing comrade and a young firebrand, Jubei leaves his two children to head off once again into the fray, and back into the abyss.

While Eastwood's original has the philosophical edge (screenwriter David Webb Peoples's musings on death and damnation are pure poetry), Lee's version offers enough grand spectacle and historical intrigue to carve its own space in the international multiplexes. Watanabe (who starred in Eastwood's Letters from Iwo Jima) is terrific as the haggard assassin with the weight of the world on his shoulders, unable to escape his past, en route to hell. Expansive widescreen vistas add wow-factor, with director of photography Norimichi Kasamatsu making the most of the breathtaking scenery.