Red Sun feels like somebody dreamt their perfect movie then somehow got it made. Charles Bronson, the implacable harmonica playing avenger in Sergio Leone’s Once Upon a Time in the West (1967) stars as a train robber. This is where it gets really interesting: Alain Delon, star of a trio of Jean-Pierre Melville movies plays the nemesis.
There’s more. Akira Kurosawa’s leading man Toshirô Mifune co-stars as a samurai warrior. A samurai warrior in a cowboy film! We’re not finished yet. The leading lady is Swiss tigress Ursula Andress, fierce enough to ride alongside these tough hombres. Lastly, the director is Terence Young, classiest of all the Bond directors.
Terence Young Directs Red Sun
It is 1870 and Link (Bronson) robs a train with the aid of Gauche (Delon). A Japanese ambassador is travelling onboard. Gauche steals a valuable katana meant as a gift for the US President and shoots a samurai guard. After emptying the safe Gauche betrays Link and leaves him for dead. Losing the sword means disgrace for Kuroda (Toshiro Mifune) and so he teams up with Link to hunt Gauche down.
Neither Gauche or Link are particularly honourable characters. The cynicism that crept into the genre in the Fifties in the work of directors like Anthony Mann, Sam Fuller, and Budd Boetticher, was now expected thanks to the success of the Spaghetti Westerns of Sergio Leone. There’s more than a touch of The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (Leone 1966) present in Red Sun though Terence Young’s directing is more stately and old-fashioned than Leone’s. The relationship between Link and Kuroda is combative, and mirrors that of Blondie and Tuco, but in an early example of the buddy movie both men develop a grudging respect for each other despite their cultural differences.
Westerns and Samurai Movies
Westerns and Samurai films have crossed over before. Akira Kurosawa turned crime writer Dashiell Hammett’s short story into Yojimbo (1961), Leone turned Yojimbo into A Fistful of Dollars (1964). Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai (1954) became The Magnificent Seven (John Sturges 1960). Both genres have themes in common, most notably the highly skilled lone warrior who needs nobody and moves outside society. There is a similar archetype in the thriller and Alain Delon, Melville’s lonely hitman in Le Samourai (1967) played these kinds of roles to perfection.
Red Sun is a curiosity rather than a classic. A European production bringing together a cast of international talent, its main strength lies in the casting of its iconic stars. Bronson, Mifune and Delon are three of the great movie tough guys and while all did better work elsewhere, seeing them onscreen together will delight cinephiles.
Rating 3/5
- Red Sun
- Starring Charles Bronson, Toshiro Mifune, Alain Delon, Ursula Andress
- Written by Laird Koenig, Denne Bart Petitclerc, William Roberts, Lawrence Roman
- Directed by Terence Young
- Year 1972
- Running time 112 mins
Kevin Sturton - Kevin is a graduate of the 2005 Post-Grad course in Film Journalism run by the BFI and writes mainly about film.
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