15 Great Asian Westerns

11. Samurai Avenger: The Blind Wolf (Kurando Mitsutake, 2009, Japan)

A blind man seeks revenge against the psychopath who took away his sight and slaughtered his wife and daughter. Eight years after the massacre, the man has returned to the desert town, now a highly trained samurai swordsman ready to seek justice. But he doesn't know there awaits seven assassins hired by his sworn enemy who want the bounty on his head. Set in nowhere, no time, this bloody modern day fable is a new age hybrid action film with a classic samurai essence and a spaghetti western spirit. This is, “Sushi Western!”

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12. Let The Bullets Fly (Jiang Wen, 2010, China)

Set in China during the warring 1920s, “Poxy” Zhang (张麻子; Jiang Wen) leads a group of bandits, each of whom is numbered rather than named, and ambushes a government horse train carrying Ma Bangde (马邦德; Ge You), who is on his way to Goose Town (鹅城 E-cheng) to assume the position of county governor. Ma's train is derailed, killing both his bodyguards and his adviser, Counsellor Tang (汤师爷 Tang-shiye; Feng Xiaogang). Ma has no money, having spent it all to bribe and buy his position. To avoid being killed by Zhang's bandits, he lies to them claiming that he is Counsellor Tang and that his wife (Carina Lau) was the dead governor's wife. He tells the bandits that, if they spare him and his wife, he will help Zhang to impersonate Ma and pilfer Goose Town's finances.

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13. Unforgiven (Lee Sang-il, 2013, Japan) 

Clint Eastwood's seminal western is transposed to a late 19th century Japan and further demonstrates the parallel between the samurai movie and the western. A dark brooding tale of displaced samurai and the coming of the modern age that has no place for them. This is a remake that is actually enhanced by its new setting. Ken Watanabe excels as Jubai the Killer, a man seeking to bury his past only to find the violence within resurfacing as he reluctantly joins an old war colleague on a mission to kill two settlers for the scaring of a prostitute. Steadily paced, beautifully shot with sudden and at times shocking outbursts of violence. It's a world devoid of glamour, the samurai code reduced to the law of survival and a meditation of what it takes to be a killer and the consequence it leaves on a persons psyche. Worth investigating the time in watching.

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14. Marlina the Murderer in Four Acts (Mouly Surya, 2017, Indonesia)

Through the four acts, Surya presents an odyssey of a woman who experiences an awakening about who she actually is and the world around her, with the end of the trip finishing a cycle in the most meaningful way, as Surya elaborately builds the sympathy of the audience towards the main characters.

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15. Buffalo Boys (Mike Wiluan, 2018, Indonesia)

he various action scenes are more than impressive, with the combination of western (guns and various mechanical weapons) and martial arts film (hand-on-hand brawler style combat, machetes) working quite well. The action choreography is one the film's best aspects through the aforementioned combination that also includes elements of absurdity and humor, thus stressing the entertainment the movie offers. Particularly the fights in the bar and the finale are among the most outstanding action sequences I have seen during the latest years, while they certainly compensate (partially at least) for the aforementioned issues in the narrative.

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