Unforgiven

EAST COAST PREMIERE

"Unexpectedly brilliant." —Time Out London

In adapting Clint Eastwood’s Unforgiven (1992), Sang-il Lee paid tribute to the film’s grandiosity and scale while exchanging America’s Western frontier for Meiji-era Japan, a time of immense social and political change after the fall of the Shogunate. Jubei (Ken Watanabe), once a samurai assassin, has survived to raise his children as an impoverished farmer. Before his wife’s death, he promised her that he would lay down his sword, but when Kingo Baba (Akira Emoto) comes with news of a bounty on two men who mutilated the face of a prostitute, he can’t turn him down. Young Goro (Yuya Yagira) joins the hunt, but they’ll have to get through sadistic police chief Ichizo Oishi (Koichi Sato) first, and Jubei must confront even greater injustices, as well as his past deeds and killer heart. With gorgeously choreographed action set pieces in Hokkaido’s beautiful and cruel landscape, this Unforgiven stands tall and alone.

Japan. 2013. 135 min. DCP, in Japanese with English subtitles. Directed by Sang-il Lee. With Ken Watanabe, Koichi Sato, Akira Emoto, Yuya Yagira, Shiori Kutsuna.

Part of JAPAN CUTS 2014.

Tickets
$13/$10 Japan Society members, seniors & students

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