Ken Watanabe To Star In Japanese Remake Of ‘Unforgiven’

Warner Japan is plotting a remake of  the Clint Eastwood western Unforgiven, and they’ve got Ken Watanabe (Inception) set to star in it. Variety  is reporting that in this remake director Lee Sang-Il will keep the 1880’s setting and the same general plot of the original but with Watanabe playing a samurai with a violent past. The location has been changed to the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido at a time when Japanese settlers were displacing the native Ainu people.

This is one of the few times we see a Japanese remake of an American film. It’s usually the other way around as seen in the past with such as films as The Ring (Ringu), Dark Water (Ju-On) and many others. Yurusarezaru mono which if it isn’t apparent means “unforgiven” in Japanese is scheduled for release next fall in Japan. Koichi Sato has been cast in the Gene Hackman role and Akira Emoto is set to play the Morgan Freeman part. You most likely can expect to see this hit the States sooner or later given what a high-profile remake this one is.