Back in August we learned Ken Watanabe(Inception) would be starring in a Japanese remake of Clint Eastwood's Unforgiven, considered one of the great American Westerns since it's release in 1992. Surprisingly, there wasn't much of an uproar about it, perhaps because Watanabe has a certain Eastwood quality to him, but also because of the storied history of Japanese samurai films being turned into Westerns by American directors. Whatever the case, the trailer for the remake has appeared online, and it looks like a welcome companion piece to the original.
The action now set in 1880s Japan, Watanabe plays an aging samurai with his own moral code, who takes on one last bounty hunting job as a means of finding redemption. Even in Japanese it's easy to tell what's going on. Attitudes are shifting as the turn of the century nears, and the samurai code of ethics is quickly becoming a thing of the past. Watanabe told a similar story in his first big Hollywood film, The Last Samurai, so it's kind of familiar territory.
Titled Yurusarezaru mono, the film is directed by Lee Sang-il(Hula Girls) and opens in Japan next fall. Whether it shows up here or not will depend largely on its success, so let's keep our fingers crossed, shall we? Check out the trailer below....[Twitch]
