Ken Watanabe to lead Japanese 'Unforgiven' remake

The American Western and the Japanese samurai genre have always gone hand and hand. The many works of legendary filmmaker, Akira Kurosawa, had arguably the greatest influence on our own Western films, while Kurosawa himself was in turn influenced by the great John Ford. Both genres deal mostly in stories of revenge, loyalty, isolationism, and the passing of a traditional way of life. So it's not all that strange to find out that one our great modern Westerns is about to get the Japanese remake treatment.

THR reports that Clint Eastwood's Oscar winning Western, Unforgiven, is being remade into a Japanese samurai film. Ken Watanabe(Inception) will take on the Eastwood role, playing a samurai with a violent past who lives on Japan's northern island of Hokkaido with his wife, but is called out of retirement for one last job. Koichi Sato(Sukiyaki Western Django) will take on the role played previously by Gene Hackman, while screen veteran Akira Emoto(Zatoichi) will play the Morgan Freeman role. The film will be set in 1880, just as Unforgiven was.

Lee Sang-Il(Hula Girls) will direct, and Time Warner's Japanese division has production set to begin shortly for release in fall 2013. This sounds pretty good, and considering Eastwood's initial fame is thanks in large part to A Fistful of Dollars, itself a remake of Kurosawa's Yojimbo, this is a nice way of coming full circle.