Happy is not a word you associate with Spaghetti Westerns, but Terrence Young's Red Sun put a smile on my face. It's a fun little buddy movie--a bit too bloody for my taste in comedies--that has Charles Bronson and Toshiro Mifune up against robbers, the Commanche, Ursula Andress, and Alain Delon.
The boys are after gold and a Samurai sword, a gift from the Japanese Emperor to the president. The cultures clash, the double-crosses add up, and Bronson shows a talent for whimsy that you wouldn't think possible. Mifune is the straight man here, but he's just so darned dependable and honorable, he grows on you anyway.
There are lots of cliches, but the movie never bogs down, and it has a nice moral center. Mifune and Bronson have a fight, and Bronson gets flipped and slammed down on the ground about 6 times. He's lying there, the wind knocked out of him, at the mercy of Mifune, part of the Japanese Ambassador's security detail who has been tasked with finding the sword (or don't come back alive), and he gathers himself and says, "Okay, let's call that a draw."
Bad men aren't into self-deprecation.
Bronson is not only a diamond in the rough who slowly gives up his dream to grab some train robbery gold he helped to steal--but Alain Delon, with the wonderful name, Gauche, takes the gold for himself, and takes the number one spot on Bronson's hit parade.
Unfortunately, Mifune wants a crack at him first, money be damned.
As the movie progresses, you can see Bronson chewing on trying to figure out a way to keep Mifune from killing Delon or killing Mifune first. By the end credits, you've seen how these two men created a trusting bond, the Samurai and the gunslinger, East and West.
Red Sun is a nice surprise, as is Chato's Land. Bronson was on a roll in the early 70s, and this is one of his better works.
The boys are after gold and a Samurai sword, a gift from the Japanese Emperor to the president. The cultures clash, the double-crosses add up, and Bronson shows a talent for whimsy that you wouldn't think possible. Mifune is the straight man here, but he's just so darned dependable and honorable, he grows on you anyway.
There are lots of cliches, but the movie never bogs down, and it has a nice moral center. Mifune and Bronson have a fight, and Bronson gets flipped and slammed down on the ground about 6 times. He's lying there, the wind knocked out of him, at the mercy of Mifune, part of the Japanese Ambassador's security detail who has been tasked with finding the sword (or don't come back alive), and he gathers himself and says, "Okay, let's call that a draw."
Bad men aren't into self-deprecation.
Bronson is not only a diamond in the rough who slowly gives up his dream to grab some train robbery gold he helped to steal--but Alain Delon, with the wonderful name, Gauche, takes the gold for himself, and takes the number one spot on Bronson's hit parade.
Unfortunately, Mifune wants a crack at him first, money be damned.
As the movie progresses, you can see Bronson chewing on trying to figure out a way to keep Mifune from killing Delon or killing Mifune first. By the end credits, you've seen how these two men created a trusting bond, the Samurai and the gunslinger, East and West.
Red Sun is a nice surprise, as is Chato's Land. Bronson was on a roll in the early 70s, and this is one of his better works.