News

Warner Bros. Discovery has signed a first-look film deal in Asia with company veteran Jack Nguyen. The agreement, revealed Monday, was set up through Nguyen’s startup production banner Joat Films and will focus on Asia-focussed remakes of Warner Bros’ English-language library titles. The two partners said their first project under the pact will be a Korean remake of the 2015 comedy-drama The Intern.

Nguyen is a former 30-year veteran of Warner Bros., where he supervised local-language film efforts primarily in the Asia and Latin America regions, and led market entries into China, India, Japan, and Korea. During his tenure, he oversaw the business that produced the Japanese films Letters from Iwo Jima, the Rurouni Kenshin franchise, and Yurusarezaru Mono, the remake of Clint Eastwood’s Oscar winner Unforgiven. In Korea, Warner Bros. produced and distributed the blockbuster The Age of Shadows, Korea’s 2017 submission for the Oscars’ best foreign language film category,...

Metallica dusted off some deep cuts on their 2014 “By Request Tour,” which allowed fans to curate each setlist through online voting. For the band’s latest installment of their #MetallicaMondays concert series, they’re streaming the full performance from March 20th in Lima, Peru.

The free stream begins at 8 p.m. Et via the band’s Facebook page and YouTube channel. It will also be available on-demand later on via YouTube.

Though the 18-track set featured many of the band’s signature tracks (including “The Unforgiven,” “One” and “Enter Sandman...

★★☆☆☆Released to widespread critical and audience acclaim back in 1992, Clint Eastwood's Oscar-winning revenge tale Unforgiven is fondly remembered as a valiant last stand by an American movie genre that had been slowly dying a death for decades. The West, as it transpired, had been well and truly won, despite several sporadic attempts to spur the old horse back into life (see Open Range, the Coen brothers' True Grit and, most recently, Quentin Tarantino's revisionist Django Unchained). Now, 22 years on from Eastwood's original offering, director Lee Sang-il presents Yurusarezaru mono (2013), a loose remake transposed to nineteenth century feudal Japan, with cowboys replaced by samurai.

Trailers are an under-appreciated art form insofar that many times they’re seen as vehicles for showing footage, explaining films away, or showing their hand about what moviegoers can expect. Foreign, domestic, independent, big budget: What better way to hone your skills as a thoughtful moviegoer than by deconstructing these little pieces of advertising? This […]

The post This Week In Trailers: Mistaken For Strangers, Now in the Wings on the World Stage, The Perfect 46, Yurusarezaru Mono (Unforgiven), Watermark appeared first on /Film.

This Japanese remake of Clint Eastwood's Unforgiven looks like such an incredible film. I'm a huge fan of the original, and this remake looks like it will be just as awesome. 

The movie is called Yurusarezaru Mono, and it was directed by Lee Sang-il (Hula Girls). Ken Watanabe (Inception) stars in the film as a swordsman who takes a job as a bounty killer.

The story takes place on the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido in the 1880s, during a time when Japanese settlers were displacing the native Ainu people. Watanabe plays a samurai with a fearsome reputation as a swordsman who is living in retirement with his Ainu wife when poverty and a large bounty tempt him into action again.

The movie also stars Kunimura Jun, Yagira Yuya, Sato Koichi, Emoto Akira, Koike Eiko, and Kutsuna Shioli. Unfortunately there's still no U.S. release date, but hopefully we get one soon.

Like The Wind Rises, which recently had its trailer updated with English subtitles, Sang-il Lee‘s remake of Unforgiven has just been give the same treatment. Even better, this updated trailer (the Japanese-only version first made waves last month) comes paired with three new clips. Thankfully all the clips come standard with English subs. If you’ve seen Clint Eastwood’s original, than the subtitles aren’t really necessary anyway- this adaptation looks faithful enough that those with an understanding of the film should be able to glean the context of any scene through the visuals alone. Check out the English-subbed trailer below along with the three clips. But the real question here is how this Unforgiven (or, Yurusarezaru Mono), will differentiate from the original work. All these clips seem to offer is scenes taken directly from Eastwood’s version, albeit with a few pistols swapped out for samurai swords. This...

Following the announcement that came earlier this week, launching yet another hugely impressive line-up at the 2013 Toronto International Film Festival, the respective line-up has now been announced for what is in some ways its European counterpart, the 2013 Venice Film Festival.

The announcement shows that the two will continue to have a number of films overlapping, including Alfonso Cuarón’s Gravity (the Opening Night Film in Venice), Peter Landesman’s Parkland, Stephen Frears’ Philomena, and more. But it also brings with its news of where a number of films will be making their debut, including Terry Gilliam’s The Zero Theorem; the latest film from Hayao Miyazaki, The Wind Rises; James Franco’s Child of God; Lee Sang-il’s Yurusarezaru Mono, the Japanese remake of Unforgiven; and Steven Knight’s Locke, led by Tom Hardy, and shot in one take.

In Competition

Es-Stouh – Merzak Alloucache (Algeria, France, 94’) L’Intrepido – Gianni Amelio (Italy,...

"Unforgiven," the 1992 Oscar-winning film by Clint Eastwood is getting a Japanese counterpart! This one is called "Yurusarezaru Mono" which means "A Thing That Can.t Be Forgiven" and stars Ken Watanabe ("The Last Samurai," "Memoirs of a Geisha," "Batman Begins") in the Eastwood role. Lee Sang-Il wrote and directed the samurai re-imagination of the western classic. The film is set to open in Japan on Sept. 13 and has been submitted to the Venice Film Festival according to the Hollywood Reporter.

Check out the trailer and see its heartfelt homage to the 1992 American original.

Here's more info on "Yurusarezaru Mono" from Wiki:

The story is set in Hokkaido around 1880, the start of the Meiji period following the collapse of the Edo shogunate, at a time when the Japanese government is attempting to open the land (then named Ezo) populated by the indigenous Ainu people.

In the shogunate's waning days, Jubei Kamata...

This trailer for Sang-il Lee’s Unforgiven doesn’t have subtitles, but it doesn’t really need them. Especially if you’ve seen the Clint Eastwood-starring version that Lee is remaking. For some reason, I can’t think about that title without picturing Billy Crystal singing “Unforgiven/That’s what you are/You killed everyone/’Cause you’re the star” at Eastwood during the 1993 Oscars. It sums up the movie quite nicely. With this new take (called Yurusarezaru Mono locally) we get Ken Watanabe as a sworn blade of the shogun retiring to a non-violent existence as a rancher before, as always, they pull him back in Pacino-style. It feels appropriately somber and hints at more than enough bloodshed. Check it out for yourself (and if you speak Japanese, please feel free to help us out in the comments section with some subtitles): Other than that one punch to the stomach, everything...

Japan and America have had an interesting cinematic exchange going on ever since the 1950s. Akira Kurosawa’s samurai films – themselves informed by the aesthetics of westerns – were in turn transformed into American westerns. More recently, directors like Quentin Tarantino have helped produce Japanese films that mimic American westerns (check out the crazy Sukiyaki Western Django, if you don’t believe me). That exchange now continues with the Japanese remake of Clint Eastwood’s Unforgiven, now titled Yurusarezaru mono and starring Ken Watanabe.

We already had a teaser for the film awhile back; now we have the full Japanese language trailer. Watanabe plays the lone gunman, now living a peaceful life at home, who takes on bounty hunting work. The film is written and directed by Sang-il Lee, based on David Webb’s original Unforgiven script. It also stars Akira Emoto, Jun Kunimura, Yuya Yagira, Eiko Koike, Shiori Kutsuna and Koichi Sato.

As most of you probably know, the U.S. loves to make westerns based on samurai movies. Well, now the Japanese have made samurai movie based on a western, and it looks incredible! 

Here's another trailer for the Japanese remake of Clint Eastwood's Unforgiven (Yurusarezaru Mono). The movie was directed by Lee Sang-il (Hula Girls) and stars Ken Watanabe (Inception) as a swordsman who takes a job as a bounty killer. This is the role that Eastwood played in the original film, only he was a retired outlaw gunman.

The story takes place in the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido in the 1880s, during a time when Japanese settlers were displacing the native Ainu people. Watanabe plays a samurai with a fearsome reputation as a swordsman who is living in retirement with his Ainu wife when poverty and a large bounty tempt him into action again.

The movie is...

The Internet loves to moan about Asian films getting Hollywood workovers (Spike Lee's Oldboy is bearing the brunt at the moment) but it's worth remembering that the remake traffic goes both ways, and that it's not necessarily a bad thing. Exhibit A: Sang-il Lee's Japanese version of Unforgiven, a trailer for which has recently emerged. There are no subtitles, but if you're even slightly familiar with the Clint Eastwood original, you'll easily pick up the jist.Elegant-looking stuff, we're sure you'll agree, and proof that, where samurai films have previously made for great westerns - Yojimbo became A Fistful of Dollars; Seven Samurai became The Magnificent Seven - here's a Western that looks to have made a great samurai film. The Japanese title is Yurusarezaru Mono, which Google is singularly failing to translate for us. Anyone?The film's still set in 1880, but the locale has been switched to...

Unforgiven Trailer, Poster. Sang-il Lee‘s Unforgiven / Yurusarezaru mono (2013) movie trailer, movie poster stars Ken Watanabe, Jun Kunimura, Yûya Yagira, Akira Emoto, and Kôichi Satô. Unforgiven‘s plot synopsis: “The action is now set in late 1800′s Hokkaido with the lead actor Ken Watanabe playing a long retired samurai drawn back into action by [...]

Continue reading: Unforgiven (2013) Movie Trailer: Ken Watanabe in Eastwood Remake Film...

Unforgiven, written by David Webb Peoples and also starring Gene Hackman, Morgan Freeman, and Richard Harris, tells the story of aging outlaw and killer William Munny (Eastwood) who comes out of retirement for one more job. The film won four Academy Awards including Best Picture and Best Director. In the new film, produced by Warner Bros Japan, the action is now set in late 1800′s Hokkaido with the lead actor Ken Watanabe playing a long retired samurai drawn back into action by the combination of poverty and a large bounty, at a time when Japan largely abandons the old ways to adopt a more modern stance. It also stars Koichi Sato (as Hackman’s character) and Akira Emoto (as Freeman’s character), Jun Kunimura, Yuya Yagira and Shiori Kutsuna. Titled Yurusarezaru mono ("Unforgiven"), the...

Kevin covered this back when it was announced only three short months ago and now a brief teaser trailer for Yurusarezaru mono (A Thing That Can't Be Forgiven), a remake of Clint Eastwood's Unforgiven starring Ken Watanabe (Inception) has arrived. The film, an adaptation of David Webb Peoples' script, was written and is currently in the process of being directed by Sang-il Lee and reimagines Unforgiven as a samurai feature set in 1880. I haven't seen an official synopsis to suggest exactly how this remake will play out, but the original found Eastwood and Morgan Freeman playing a pair of outlaws who venture out one last time to collect a bounty offered by a group of prostitutes looking for justice due to violence against one of their own. Along with Watanabe, Yurusarezaru mono co-stars Akira Emoto, Jun Kunimura, Yuya Yagira, Eiko Koike, Shiori Kutsuna and Koichi Sato and is...

A while back we reported that Ken Watanabe would be starring in a remake of Clint Eastwood's Unforgiven. The plot was going to be transplanted to feudal Japan. Now, we have our first look at the teaser for the film. The remake, titled Yurusarezaru Mono, moves the story to the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido, [at] a time when Japanese settlers were displacing the native Ainu people. Watanabe is playing the Eastwood role. While we cannot tell much from this video, unless you speak...

Sneak Peek the trailer from Warners official Japanese remake of director Clint Eastwood's Oscar-winning western "Unforgiven" ("Yurusarezaru Mono"), directed by Lee Sang-Il, starring actor Ken Watanabe in the Eastwood role:

"...in 1880, a samurai with a violent past (Watanabe), lives on Japan’s northern island of Hokkaido with his aboriginal wife, but is brought out of retirement for one last job..."

Click the images to enlarge and Sneak Peek the Japanese remake of "Unforgiven"...

For years Hollywood has remade foreign films to varying degrees, with some of the most successful examples being genre-swaps: John Sturges’ classic western “The Magnificent Seven” was based on Akira Kurosawa’s landmark “Seven Samurai.” And now a western film will have its setting swapped out for the East as Clint Eastwood’s “Unforgiven” is being remade under the tutelage of “Villain” helmer Lee Sang-il with Ken Watanabe set to star. The original 1992 western was set in 1880 and followed Eastwood’s William Munny, an old gunslinger that retired for a family and farming life, as he takes on one last job after being recruited by a young man to claim a bounty. The Warner Japan-produced remake, “Yurusarezaru mono,” will retain the period setting but will instead take place in “the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido, [at] a time when Japanese settlers were displacing the native Aniu people....

London – Ken Watanabe will take the Clint Eastwood role in a Japanese remake of Unforgiven to be made by Time Warner's Warner Entertainment Japan. Korean-Japanese helmer Lee Sang-Il (Hula Girls, Villain), who brought the idea of the project to Warner in May last year, will direct Yurusarezaru Mono (A Thing That Can’t Be Forgiven), which like the original, will be set in 1880. Watanabe will play a samurai with a violent past, who lives on Japan’s northern island of Hokkaido with his Ainu (the aboriginal people of the island) wife, but is brought out of retirement for one

read more...