There's a long-running cinematic tradition of Westerns borrowing from samurai movies and vice versa which includes the works of such great filmmakers as Akira Kurosawa and Sergio Leone. Unforgiven goes the other way and takes the Western swansong of Clint Eastwood and relocates it to the Meiji period in Japan. Faithful to Eastwood's version in all but its setting, Unforgiven stars Ken Watanabe in the Eastwood role; a swordsman lured back into action to seek out the men who mutilated a prostitute. South Korean director Lee Sang-il has crafted a beautiful film equal to the original - indeed, in some respects it's actually a better film than Eastwood's Oscar winner, not least in the staging of the finale amidst a burning inn. The biggest draw to Unforgiven is Ken Watanabe's world-weary central performance, every bit the equal to Eastwood's original. Watanabe is most familiar as a peripheral character in films like Godzilla and The Last Samurai, and it's a pleasure to see him take centre stage and dominate it so effectively.
