Ken Watanabe To Star in Japanese Unforgiven Remake

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http://sg.entertainment.yahoo.com/news/japanese-remake-clint-eastwoods-unforgiven-202300054.html

Inspired by Clint Eastwood's 1992 Oscar-winning classic "Unforgiven", Warner Bros Japan has hired "Villain" director Lee Sang-il to remake the American masterpiece into a Japanese film with Samurai theme, which will be titled "Yurusarezaru Mono", according to The Inquisitr.
The remake of Eastwood's directorial effort has made history, as it would be the first time in the Japanese movie scene that an American film is being remade and released in Japan.
"The original film is acclaimed to be the masterpiece of western films. I am thrilled, happy, and overwhelmed with pleasure to be given this opportunity, as director Clint Eastwood, whom I highly respect, is a filmmaker with an unprecedented talent," said Lee.
20 years ago, "Unforgiven" provided a star-studded cast lineup as it starred a bunch of Academy Award legends like Eastwood himself, Gene Hackman, Morgan Freeman and the late Golden Globe nominee Richard Harris. Written by David Webb Peoples, the Old West movie was nominated for 9 categories at the 65th Academy Awards and had eventually won Best Picture, Best Director, Best Editing and Best Supporting Actor.
Instead of using the original Western angle, the Japanese filmmaker is shifting the setting to Hokkaido, Japan, and the movie will take place in 1880, a time when the native Ainu people were displaced by Japanese settlers. "Inception" and "The Last Samurai" star Ken Watanabe will take on the lead role played by Eastwood in the original, as a samurai who isolates himself from a violent past and comes out of retirement due to poverty.
"It's an honour to know that Lee Sang-il and my good friend Ken Watanabe, with whom I worked closely on in "Letters from Iwo Jima", will be teaming up on a Japanese rendition of "Unforgiven"," Eastwood commented.
Ken Watanabe also said, "To me, director Clint Eastwood is like my father in the film industry and it will be challenging for me to remake one of his best known films. Together with director Lee, we'd like to build our "Unforgiven" in our own way in this vast land of Hokkaido."
"Yurusarezaru Mono" will begin shooting this September and is targeted for a nationwide release in Japan during the fall of 2013.




I just came.
 
Nice. I like how Clint is fully onboard with the remake. Not that it should be surprising since Clint's already starred in an American western remake of a Japanese samurai movie.

Just in case some of you might not know, Im talking about Yojimbo and A Fistful of Dollars.
 
Ahem... Watanabe playing a Samurai again?

Count me the **** in!! :grin:
 
They should cast Morgan Freeman in this version too.
 
They should cast Morgan Freeman in this version too.

Well, of course, they need somebody to narrate the thing. Or to be US President during a major science fiction disaster, either way.
 
Nice. I like how Clint is fully onboard with the remake. Not that it should be surprising since Clint's already starred in an American western remake of a Japanese samurai movie.

Just in case some of you might not know, Im talking about Yojimbo and A Fistful of Dollars.

Don't forget that Paint Your Wagon was also a western remake of the Japanese movie Tomo-rai no shingen.

Roughly translated: Let us laugh heartily at homosexual gold prospectors, while audience loses ten dollars and two hours of life.
 
Haha, Japanese remakes of anything automatically get a pass because we know it will come out crazy as ****.
 
I hate remakes, but I'm so excited about this!
 
This sounds really cool. I love Unforgiven and I love Samurai films so **** yes to all of this!!!
 
Haha, Japanese remakes of anything automatically get a pass because we know it will come out crazy as ****.

I don't think they're going to go all Sukiyaki Western Django with such a beloved dramatic film...

I like the reversal here, since as already mentioned many classic Westerns (A Fistful of Dollars, The Magnificent Seven, etc.) were reimaginings of Kurosawa samurai films. It will be interesting to see it go in the other direction. It would be neat if Unforgiven was the basis for a new set of films or something. It could be the Yojimbo of the modern era (I mean, just for Yojimbo you had A Fistful of Dollars, Inferno/Desert Heat, and Last Man Standing...and probably many others I can't remember).
 
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http://twitchfilm.com/2012/11/first...-japanese-remake-of-eastwoods-unforgiven.html

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This is going to be great. The photo of the cut-up girl is already breaking my heart, I am totally seeing this.
 
Hot damn those pictures look good. Seriously!!!
 
Agreed, fellas. This looks fantastic and I gotta get a name on that actress in the last photo. :wow:
 
"Here's my back. You get one shot, but you better make it count, because everything goes very badly for you after that."
 
Well this was an interesting project.

Now I feel it would've been cool as well if Kurosawa had made a samurai remake of some of the classic westerns.
 
Now I feel it would've been cool as well if Kurosawa had made a samurai remake of some of the classic westerns.

A Kurosawa samurai remake of Paint Your Wagon would have been :awesome:.
 
Now the Japanese are ripping off our Westerns? Man, the world really is ending in 2012.
 

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