Unforgiven

A Japanese remake of the Clint Eastwood western, with Ken Watanabe playing the equivalent of the Eastwood role.

There's a long tradition of remakes of westerns and samurai films going back to "A Fistful of Dollars" and "Yojimbo" (it's an exchange that has worked and worked well in both directions). Given the emphasis on honour and codes of behaviour, the two styles are very complementary.

The new "Unforgiven" takes the basic story of the original and presents it though the lens of Japanese culture of the 1880's, a time when the Samurai eras ending and a new culture was being established. The transition to the "new government" provides an additional layer to the story. There's a sense of time passing and of men who are being left behind.

The fact that the film works so well is a testament to the "good bones" of the original. I went back this morning and reviewed the plot of the Eastwood film and it is quite faithful to that story (any differences would amount to plot spoilers and I will not go into them here), yet it is a creature of its own. If anything, I found Watanabe's return to his samurai training more believable than Eastwood's transition to the gunslinger (when I saw the original in '92, the change felt forced to me).

Recommended. It had a Warner Brothers imprint at the beginning, so it would appear that a release in North America is coming.

One final footnote. Thursday marked the death of Ray Dolby, the founder of Dolby Laboratories. There is a credit to Dolby's sound production before each film and when it appeared during the screening of "Unforgiven", there was thunderous applause from the audience. A nice tribute.