Remake Bits: Get a Taste of the Japanese ‘Unforgiven,’ Plus ‘Oldboy,’ ‘Mortal Kombat,’ and Simon West Takes Over ‘Heat’
Posted on Tuesday, November 6th, 2012 by Russ Fischer
Conan the Barbarian isn’t the only guy getting the Unforgiven treatment. The 1991 Clint Eastwood western has become a genre landmark, essentially nailing shut the concept of the anti-hero created when the spaghetti western subgenre flowered with A Fistful of Dollars in 1964.
Now Ken Watanabe is playing the Eastwood role in a Japanese-produced remake of Unforgiven, which is set in Japan in 1880. Lee Sang-il directs, with part of the film oriented around Japan’s transition out of very secluded tradition to a more modern society able to come to terms with outside influence. That conflict has been played out in Japanese cinema many times before, especially as many samurai films were essentially rebranded westerns. So this remake seems like nearly an inevitability.
See some shots from the film below, along with a few other news items:
- Simon West will direct a remake of the Burt Reynolds film Heat,
- the new Mortal Kombat film has a rough budget,
- Josh Brolin, Elizabeth Olsen and a bizarre stranger caught in Oldboy set pics,
- and an Oldboy cast member talks about Brolin’s physical transformations for the film.
