Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.5
Audio		5.0
Extras		4.0
Overall		3.5

Unforgiven Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Dr. Svet Atanasov September 21, 2014

Lee Sang-il's "Unforgiven" a.k.a. "Yurusarezaru mono" (2013) arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of Warner Brothers UK. The supplemental features on the disc include making of featurette; behind the scenes documentary film; deleted scenes; and optional commentary for the deleted scenes by director Lee Sang-il and producer Yuji Ishida. In Japanese, with imposed English subtitles for the main feature. Region-Free.

Jubei the Killer

Year 2 of the Meiji Era. After the fall of the Shogunate regime and the death of his wife, former samurai Jubei (Ken Watanabe, The Last Samurai, Letters from Iwo Jima) has become a farmer somewhere on Hokkaido Island. But nature has not been kind to him and his two children.

Soon after a prostitute is seriously injured in a popular brothel and the authorities allow her attackers to walk away unpunished, Jubei is approached by old friend Kingo (Akira Emoto, Zatoichi: The Blind Swordsman, The Eel). Kingo convinces Jubei to come with him and collect a bounty offered by the rest of the women working in the brothel.

On their way to the brothel Jubei and Kingo are joined by Goro (Yuya Yagira, Nobody Knows), a young warrior from the Ainu tribe. Despite the fact that Goro is rarely sober, Jubei and Kingo enjoy his company and agree to use him when they track down the attackers.

Eventually, the three warriors reach the popular brothel. Then they run into the town’s heartless police chief Ichizo (Koichi Sato, Sukiyaki Western Django, When the Last Sword is Drawn), who quickly makes it clear to them that he despises retired warriors and warns them that anyone disrespecting his strict rules will be immediately punished.

Lee Sang-il’s Unforgiven was clearly inspired by Clint Eastwood’s award winning Western, but it has an identity of its own. Indeed, many of the key themes from the original film are present here, but the story has a completely different vibe, period atmosphere and rhythm.

The film is loosely divided into two uneven sections. In the first Jubei is a quiet man concerned about the future of his children. Having promised his late wife to never draw his sword again, Jubei constantly questions his decision to follow Kingo. His quiet struggle is closely observed by the camera in a number of different sequences.

The second section sees the return of Jubei the Killer, a fearless samurai with a dark past. After he is seriously hurt by the police chief -- truly brilliantly played by Koichi Sato -- Jubei goes berserk and rather predictably it is only a matter of time before his enemies are struck by his sword.

The period atmosphere is excellent and the fights appropriately ugly. Towards the end there are a couple of sequences that are quite graphic, but the violence never feels grotesque. Watanabe looks very good here, but occasionally one gets the feeling that he is trying too hard to imitate Clint Eastwood’s personality.

What does not work particularly well in this remake is the manner in which nature is filmed. In the original film nature has a personality and very quickly becomes an integral part of the story. This isn’t the case here. There are beautiful panoramic shots throughout the entire film, but they frequently look misplaced. The music is also used in a way that makes it too obvious that the film desperately wants to be a grand epic.

Earlier this year, Unforgiven won Best Cinematography (Norimichi Kasamatsu) and Best Lighting (Koichi Watanabe) Japanese Academy Awards.

Unforgiven Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Presented in its original aspect ratio of 2.39:1, encoded with MPEG-4 AVC and granted a 1080p transfer, Lee Sang-il's Unforgiven arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of Warner Brothers UK.

Excluding some extremely light flicker that appears during a couple of the winter scenes, the technical presentation is excellent. Indeed, during close-ups and wider panoramic shots image depth and clarity are very impressive, while contrast levels remain stable throughout the entire film. Colors are rich and wonderfully saturated but never appearing artificially boosted. There are no encoding or compression anomalies to report in this review. Lastly, overall image stability is outstanding. (Note: This is a Region-Free Blu-ray release. Therefore, you will be able to play it on your PS3 or SA regardless of your geographical location. For the record, there is no problematic PAL or 1080/50i content preceding the disc's main menu).

Unforgiven Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

There is only one standard audio track on this Blu-ray release: Japanese DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1. For the record, Warner Brothers has provided imposed English subtitles for the main feature. (They cannot be turned off via the disc's main menu or with the player's remote control). The subtitles appear inside the image frame.

The lossless track is outstanding. It has a tremendous range of nuanced dynamics and clarity and depth are fantastic. Occasionally, the surround channels are also effectively used. The dialog is clean, stable, and exceptionally easy to follow. There are no pops, audio dropouts, or digital distortions to report in this review.

Unforgiven Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Documentary: Challenge to the Masterpiece - a standard featurette with raw footage from the shooting of the film and comments by cast and crew members addressing the production process. In Japanese, with optional English subtitles. (13 min, 1080/60i).

• Behind the Scenes Documentary - this excellent documentary chronicles the 80-day shooting of Unforgiven in Hokkaido, the northernmost of the four main islands of Japan. Included in the documentary are various clips from on-location interviews with various cast and crew members. In Japanese, with optional English subtitles. (65 min, 1080/60i).

• Deleted Scenes - a collection of deleted scenes. In Japanese, with optional English subtitles. (19 min, 1080p).

• Deleted Scenes with Commentary - the same deleted scenes with comments by director Lee Sang-il and producer Yuji Ishida. In Japanese, with optional English subtitles. (19 min, 1080p).

Unforgiven Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Lee Sang-il's new film has an identity of its own, but it is absolutely impossible not to compare it to Clint Eastwood's classic Western. As strange as it may sound, this is probably its biggest weakness -- there is a lot that it does well, but the original film has set the bar so high that even minor flaws immediately stick out. Regardless, fans of Ken Watanabe should not miss this film. He looks terrific in it. RECOMMENDED.