MartinHafer
I had to see this film...mostly because of the strangeness of the cast. In addition to the three guys I mentioned above, Capucine and Ursula Andress appear in the film....making it a film starring an American, a couple French folks, a Swiss lady and a Japanese man! Talk about a strange conglomeration of actors!When the film begins, the first Japanese ambassador to the United States is on a train heading through the west towards Washington, DC. However, a gang of bloody bandits hold up the train and kill a lot of folks...and steal the gift from the Emperor to the President. The ambassador is determined to get this back and sends one of his samurai (Mifune) to recapture the sword that was stolen by Gauche (Delon). It also happens that Gauche (which, oddly, means 'left' in French) just tried to murder his partner (Bronson) and so the Samurai and the angry crook decide to work together to get their revenge on Gauche. But, not surprisingly, the partnership is a rocky one...and the pair have to eventually learn to work together in order to get what they want. This process makes up the bulk of the film.While the mismatched theme is very familiar, the situation is, at the very least, hard to believe and a bit contrived! You simply have to ignore this and watch the film and enjoy it for what it is-- an escapist action film. The Comanches in the film, by the way, fight like idiots--charging up to be bumped off one after the other! Not especially good or bad...just competently made and worth your time overall.
legendaryunderdog
This is possibly one of Charles Bronson's best cinematic performances with the exception of a few of his other films. Albeit the story is a little corny and there seems to be a lot of action going on all the time (which is O.K. with me) this movie really spoke volumes to me. Learning that this film is based on an incident that supposedly happened around 1870, that blew me away alone. A gunslinger, a samurai and a woman who only cares for herself (Ursula Andress) make up for the meat of the cast. A lot of action sequences in this movie and it is a little funny in some spots, Bronson (unusually) provides a lot of the laughs in the film. This movie is incorporating all different types of stuff and it just seems a little to-good-to-be-true type movie, but I really really really liked it! It's not to often that you get to see a gunfighter and a samurai fight on the same side in a "traditional" spaghetti western. Terence Young did a great job on this film. 8 out of 10 stars any day of the week.
loudbike
Another IMDb member suggested in their comments that a nude scene from Ursule Andress should help save a movie. Add another brief nude brothel moment, and Cappucine and a cast of otherwise pretty good actors and the movie becomes watchable but continuity disasters and bad directing can't garner much more than a mediocre 5 out of 10. Watch for wardrobe blunders as well. Anachronisms are so rampant that we found ourselves watching for more as we labored through the amateur camera work and dialog. If you're a Bronson fan, then sitting through this is mandatory so the "Ive seen all of his movies" quote can be used with pride, but I doubt this one is in his personal top 10 favorites.This is one movie that Mifune would probably like to forget this one as well..
donlecouteur
On the surface Red Sun appears to be a fairly standard shoot-em-up with the attendant 'who's the real nasty?' sub-plot thrown in for a bit of mystery. But the careful observer will discover many more layers of this particular onion pitting cultures (and genders) against each other with a few surprising results and plenty of thought-provoking situations designed to keep this one on the shelf as a 'keeper'.Bronson fans (like me) will note this is the second of his 'samurai connection'westerns...Magnificent Seven being the first...though the debate will probably never be resolved as to which was the better performance. True, some of the dialogue in this movie borders on juvenile, but overall I rate the movie very high.
AD
