Things always seem to come full circle. Clint Eastwood‘s first major western film, A Fistful of Dollars, was an uncredited remake of Japanese director Akira Kurosawa samurai film Yojimbo. Now, Eastwood’s final western, Unforgiven, is getting the remake treatment by Warner Japan, and it is being turned into a samurai film.
According to Variety, Lee Sang-il (Villain) will direct the film, with Ken Watanabe taking Eastwood’s role as the aging gunslinger (well, in this case, swordsman). Curiously, Watanabe previously worked with Eastwood, who directed Watanabe in Letters from Iwo Jima (Eastwood also directed Unforgiven). Also starring in the remake will be Akira Emoto (The Blind Swordsman: Zatoichi) and Koichi Sato (Sukiyaki Western Django). It will be titled Yurusarezaru mono (which Variety says is Japanese for “Unforgiven”, and since I don’t know Japanese I will take them at their word). The story will still be set in 1880, as was the original, but will be set on the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido.
Now this is the type of remake I like to see — another culture doing its own take on a film and not trying to simply retread it. Unforgiven had a basic story (though obviously a great one), and it should be easy for the filmmakers to transplant the story from America to Japan.
Yurusarezaru mono is scheduled for a Fall 2013 release.
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