What goes around comes around. Just as a fair number of westerns were remakes of classic Japanese Samurai movies so Sang-il Lee's "Unforgiven" is a fairly literal remake of Clint Eastwood's Oscar winner of the same name. Here we may be dealing with samurai but that doesn't disguise the fact that these guys may as well be cowboys and this could be the American West. It's a reasonably exciting and handsome picture, gorgeously shot in widescreen by Norimichi Kasamatsu, but it is also so close to the original it feels almost negligible. Ken Watanabe plays the Eastwood role but it's something of a one-note performance; he lacks Clint's gravitas. This could have been a classic but as it is it's nothing more than a very good copy.

This is a beautiful retelling of Clint Eastwoods classic film. It's stunningly shot, well acted and very immersive. Ken Watanabe is the quintisenial reluctant badass. The only problem I had was with the film's villain. Gene Hackmans charming and terrifying performance is almost reduced to a mustache twirling villain. Like he literally has a mustache, which he twirls. Hackmans original performance is so engaging and effective, because he's so polite and charismatic. You really get the idea that he's a psychopath hiding in plain sight. Sadly the remakes villain falls short of Hackmans high bar. Beyond that, this is one of the better remakes I've ever seen.

When I heard that Japanese were making a period samurai movie based on the modern-day Eastwood western classic UNFORGIVEN, I was in two minds. I love samurai flicks (and also leading actor Ken Watanabe),but the Eastwood film was already pretty much perfect for a lot of fans. How could the Japanese hope to better it?

The answer is that they haven't. This new UNFORGIVEN is the inferior film in every respect, with a boring villain and a lack of talented actors and characterisation that made the original such a great movie. The Japanese UNFORGIVEN feels slow and stately and is certainly well shot throughout, but aside from the exciting climax, it has no real voice or look of its own.

For the most part, this is a shot-for-shot remake and I have no interest in shot-for-shot remakes. Thematic remakes are fine; remakes that take key material and give their own slant, like Carpenter's THE THING or Aja's THE HILLS HAVE EYES, great. But all the while I was watching this film, I was wishing I was watching the superb original instead. Watanabe does his best and while it's nice to see the Japanese remaking an American film for a change (as so many times it's been the other way around),UNFORGIVEN is a bit pointless.