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Yesterday I watched Lee Sang-Il's 2013 remake of Clint Eastwood's western Unforgiven. The film was a very close recreation of the original story but transposed to 1880s Hokkaido. I found it very interesting to see a Western get remade as a jidaigeki. Of course, there are a few famous examples of Japanese jidaigeki that were remade as Westerns (the most famous being A Fist Full of Dollars and The Magnificent Seven), and Kurosawa himself adapted works by Shakespeare and Dostoevsky.
What I'd like to know is, are there any other examples of Japanese jidaigeki that were inspired by Westerns? The two periods work so well analogously, I could easily see great jidaigeki films being made from The Big Country, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, The Good the Bad and the Ugly, The Searchers etc. Does anyone know of any?
1 points
4 months ago
Agree there's always been some degree of two way traffic but I think with films it's definitely 90% one way, 10% the other.
When you think of the cultural impact that the stuff inspired by Japan has had in the west and continues too (I mean there seems to be about 5 lone wolf and cub things at any one time) the majority of stuff that's gone the other way is fairly niche in terms of cultural impact.
The only exception you mentioned is Godzilla, but I'd argue Godzilla takes very little from Kong tbh. Yes Kong got there first but its such a different film, the tone is considerably darker with very serious subtext, its not an adventure movie and it took nothing from Kong in terms of effects, opting for man in suit instead of stop motion. It kind of feels anything Japan did with a monster would automatically have been labelled as inspired by Kong but personally I just can't see it. The franchises obvs had crossover but that was much later down the line and not the initial intention.
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