#yurusarezaru mono

[nomilkinmyteaplease]

Unforgiven / Yurusarezaru Mono (2013, Japan)

One of a few remakes I find as good as the original. The western has been transplanted onto Japanese soil, and... works. Really well.

[amechyofsorts]

Rewatched Yurusarezaru Mono, the samurai remake of Clint Eastwoods Unforgiven, starring Ken Watanabe. Been like ten years since I last saw it, back when it came out on dvd in the west.

Feel basically how I rememberd about it. It's a good remake that takes the original pretty closely, but adapts it to fit different setting well. Visually I think it exceeds the original, with some really gorgeous shots, some of which reminded me more of Leone movies then Unforgiven. I think the Ned character here has his change of heart about killing done more belivable and dramatic then in the original.

The tone is definitely different, with little to no humor this time around, and the meta aspect of specifically being about violence in the western as a genre, and in much of the movies of the genre Eastwood himself starred in, is entirely gone. It's a more broad story about violence and exactly what it means to be a killer. Here the Scofield Kid isn't hankering to be a killer because that's what the hero of westerns was, but rather because of a more personal reason in his past. Although you probably could make many of the exact same observations about samurai movies, but they didn't really do much with that here.

A bit mixed on how the onscreen violence was handled. I did like how dragged out and brutal a few of the kills were, fitting since swords were more at use here than guns, but it does lose the really swift and matter of fact violence of the original. The final fight is the worst offender, with a bunch of slowmo that doesn't do anything good for it, and it's such a contrast for the extremely brief shootout in the original that really was just more about showcasing the difference in Will and other people.

The one thing I didn't like was how they went out of their way to make a point of how in Jubei's case the worst things attributed to him were actually misblamed on him. It's the opposite of the original, where it slowly reveals that Will used to be worse then any of the things people say about him. It just kinda neuters the character, with rather then him coming off worse and worse by the end like in the original, it makes the end fight here come off more like a righteous badass bloodbath. Bleh.

But still, it's a good and interesting movie on it's own. I especially liked the part of the movie about the Ainu and what they went through at the time, which basically was a brand new aspect to this movie. Definitely super interesting if you like the original, but also a good watch even if you haven't seen the og.

[moviesinframes]

Yurusarezaru mono (Unforgiven), 2013 (dir. Sang-il Lee)

By Psicotex

[cinefilia2012]

Yurusarezaru mono - 7/10

(Unforgiven)

[rayonfilm]

Unforgiven 2013 (Yurusarezaru Mono)

This is a remake of Clint Eastwood’s Academy Award winning 1992 western film of the same name.  

Normally I’m not a fan of remakes especially when the original is a work of art but in this case i was willing to have an open mind since many of Clint Eastwood’s early spaghetti westerns were adapted from jidaigeki (samurai) films.  It seemed only fitting that the greatest western movie of all time (and last) was adapted to a samurai film to make the circle complete.

The 1992 original was simple and subtle.  The characters were strong and sympathetic and the story itself was an allegory for the decline of western cinema as well as a farewell Eastwood’s own western film career.  

This time, right off the bat there were some small changes that concerned me, but I was willing to overlook them and as the film progressed I even thought that these alterations might take the story to some interesting places.  But, about 30mins in, I realized that the makers of this film had simply succumbed to the usual overacting and forced drama for the sake of drama that plagues most japanese cinema and tv.  Gone was the subtlety, and the character backstories left very little room for anything but paper-thin motivation.

In its defence, its not a bad film.  It still looks good and the action isn’t bad. Also, it tries to talk a little about the Battle of Hakodate and the disappearance of Ainu tribes in Hokkaido but in my opinion this is unnecessary and actually excuses some of the characters’ actions when in fact these people should be dark and violent to the core rather than victims of circumstance.  

Its too bad because I had high hopes for this version.  It would have been so nice if Ken Watanabe’s Jubee could have brought Eastwood’s William Munny home again.   

For now, I'll settle for a drink.

[gefra]

Unforgiven [Yurusarezaru mono] (2013) -

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2347134/

[subbed]

[Cinema]

{mediorcre?}

[superlativeodyssey-blog]

[guyonthehigh]

Yurusarezaru Mono (Unforgiven) **Movie Trailer**

#guyonthehigh