Unforgiven ***
Dir: Lee
Sang-il. With: Ken Watanabe, Akira Emoto, Shiori Kutsuna. 135 mins. Cert: 15
The symmetry is
irresistible. 1964’s A Fistful of Dollars,
a remake of Kurosawa’s Yojimbo, made
an international star of Clint Eastwood; now Eastwood’s valedictory 1992
Western has been remade by Korean-Japanese director Lee Sang-il. The tale of an
ageing warrior (here Letters from Iwo
Jima’s Ken Watanabe) who returns to the saddle to avenge a vicious attack
on a prostitute translates fluently to the late samurai era, allowing Lee to
refresh the action in pitting rusting swords against the emergent pistol.
Narratively, it’s limited by a certain lack of surprises: if the territory’s
new-ish, the characters are ported over unaltered from David Webb Peoples’
screenplay, and their interplay doesn’t yield any insights on the grim business
of killing that Clint hadn’t already spat out. Still, it’s an enduring yarn,
well told: a rare remake that functions independently, even as it reminds you –
vividly, in places – of the original’s elegiac pleasures.
Unforgiven opens in selected cinemas from today.
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