Genre Grinder Cares
By: Gabe Powers
July 8, 2026
Label Arrow Video
4K UHD Release: July 14, 2026
Video: 1.85:1/2160p (HDR10/Dolby Vision)/Color
Audio: English LPCM 1.0
Subtitles: English SDH
Run Time: 115:04
Directors: Terence Young
Note: This review recycles aspects of my review of
Cauldron Films’ release of Shanghai Joe (1973).
A ceremonial samurai sword intended as a gift to the U.S.
President from the Japanese ambassador is stolen by the devilish rogue, Gauche
(Alain Delon). To restore their honor and return the sword to its rightful
owner, disgraced samurai Kuroda Jubei (Toshiro Mifune), double-crossed bandit
Link Stuart (Charles Bronson), and femme fatale Christina (Ursula Andress) must
set aside their differences and hunt down the merciless Gauche across the
beautiful vistas of the American west. (From Arrow’s official synopsis)
The so-called spaghetti westerns were a series of European films set largely in the American west, made mostly by Italians, shot in Spain, and often co-financed by West Germans. They were designed for multiregional release and utilized international casts to aid sales in other countries. These efforts ensured that the spaghettis were popular across Europe, North America, and Asia, especially in Japan, where the genre’s connections to samurai cinema weren’t forgotten, and in Hong Kong, where the style and mythical revisionism of the spaghettis inspired pioneering wuxia filmmakers.
Mutual admiration and the similar box office success of
kung fu and samurai flicks eventually led to a collection of East meets West
spaghettis, in which Japanese samurai and Chinese martial artists had
adventures alongside cowboys in the American Southwest. Early examples were
Enzo Peri’s Death Walks in Laredo (Italian: Tre pistole contro Cesare, 1968)
and Don Taylor & Italo Zingarelli’s The 5-Man Army (Italian: Un esercito di
5 uomini, 1969), but 1973 was the year that the mini-genre broke out with Bruno
Corbucci’s The Three Musketeers of the West (Italian: Tutti per uno... botte
per tutti), Tonino Ricci’s Karate, Fists & Beans (Italian: Storia di
karatè, pugni e fagioli), Alberto de Martino’s Here We Go Again, Eh Providence?
(Italian: Ci risiamo, vero Provvidenza?), and Mario Caiano’s Shanghai Joe
(Italian: Il mio nome è Shangai Joe)*.
There were higher-profile examples, too, like The
Stranger and the Gunfighter (Italian: Là dove non batte il sole, 1974), which
paired Lee Van Cleef and Lo Lieh, and Take a Hard Ride (1975), a
spaghetti-blaxploitation vehicle that teamed-up Van Cleef with Jim Brown, Fred
Williamson, and martial arts star Jim Kelly – both directed by Antonio Margheriti
– but none had the budget or notoriety of Terence Young’s Red Sun (French:
Soleil rouge; Italian: Sole rossois, 1971), which is to The Stranger and the
Gunfighter, as Sergio Leone’s Once Upon a Time in the West (Italian: C'era una
volta il West, 1968) is to Sergio Corbucci’s Django (1966) – a lavishly
produced variation on a theme designed for blockbuster markets and critical
praise. It’s not as good as Leone’s film, but it has the same spirit of scale
and grandeur, and even shares a cast member in Charles Bronson.
Red Sun’s cultural melting pot is also bigger than its
counterparts’. The cast is built around four leads, mirroring that of Once Upon
a Time in the West (probably on purpose), right down to the three men to one
woman ratio. Instead of blending Hollywood and Italian stars, Red Sun
represents four distinct countries – America in Bronson (reportedly, Young
wanted Clint Eastwood), Switzerland in Ursula Andress, France in Alain Delon,
and Japan with Toshiro Mifune.
Young was a versatile filmmaker who shot thrillers,
dramas, musicals, and comedies. He was particularly gifted at staging action,
which made him a leading director of war films and scored him the job of
bringing the James Bond novel series to the big screen. His greatest claims to
fame are Dr. No (1962), From Russia with Love (1963), and Thunderball (1965) –
the first, second, and fourth Bond films, respectively – making him one of the
architects of post-war spy cinema. Extremely capable and extremely influential,
especially in Italy, where his films spawned a series of 007 knock-offs, if any
(currently working) English director could compete with Leone, it would be
Terence Young.
Mifune is the centerpiece of the film’s meta-casting.
Arguably the biggest jidaigeki star to have ever lived, his storied career
included Akira Kurosawa’s Yojimbo (1961), the film Leone remade as Fistful of
Dollars (Italian: Per un pugno di dollari, 1964), and Seven Samurai (1954), the
film that John Sturges remade as Magnificent Seven (1960), co-starring Bronson.
Red Sun was his only western, but not his first English language movie.
Previously, he had a supporting part in John Frankenheimer’s Grand Prix (1966),
alongside western legend James Garner, and John Boorman’s Hell in the Pacific
(1968), alongside western legend Lee Marvin.
Andress and Young had worked together previously on Dr.
No, a film that made them stars, but which also pigeonholed their wider careers
as Bond Girl and Bond director. Andress had made one other western, Robert
Aldrich’s comedy 4 for Texas (1963), which had Bronson in a supporting role.
She was such a regular fixture in Italy throughout the ‘60s, ‘70s, and ‘80s
that she might as well have been considered an Italian star at the time,
instead of a Swiss one, for the sake of the box office.
Delon made his Hollywood debut in Ralph Nelson’s Once a
Thief (1965), followed by his first western, Michael Gordon’s Texas Across the
River (1966) with Andress’ 4 for Texas co-star Dean Martin. Like Andress, he
was already very popular in Italy, having worked with Luchino Visconti and
Michelangelo Antonioni. Around the same time as Red Sun, Delon was making crime
movies with known spaghetti western hater Jean-Pierre Melville and transferred
the cool persona he’d cultivated on Le Samouraï (1967), Le Cercle Rouge (1970),
and Un Flic (1972) straight into his role as Red Sun’s main antagonist.
The film (not to be confused with Rudolf Thome’s Rote
Sonne, also 1970) was co-financed by French, Italian, and Spanish producers and
filmed in Almeria, Spain in locations and sets that are familiar to any
spaghetti western fan – the opening train heist, for example, was shot in the
same La Calahorra rock formation as the opening train heist from Damiano
Damiani’s Bullet for the General (Italian: Quien Sabe?, 1966). The supporting
cast includes familiar faces, too, including Luc Merenda, Guido Lollobrigida,
Hungarian Barta Barri, Spaniard Ricardo Palacios, and Englishman Anthony Dawson
(who also worked with Young on Dr. No and From Russia with Love).
Unlike Burt Kennedy’s Hannie Caulder (1971), which was
also co-financed by Brits and shot around Almeria with a partially Spanish
crew, Red Sun tries too hard to appeal to the broadest possible audience and
finds itself lacking core themes and signature images. Making a
spaghetti-baguette-paella-beans-on-toast western requires too many cooks in the
kitchen, it seems. Still, Young was one of the greatest action directors of his
generation and Red Sun is ultimately worth watching for its shoot outs and its
novelty casting, especially during the scenes where Bronson, cast somewhat
against type as the funny one, and Mifune play odd couple.
Just for fun, here’s a screencap from the beginning of
the film. Note that the wanted poster beside Charles Bronson appears to have a
picture of Tony Musante’s character, Paco, from Sergio Corbucci’s The Mercenary
(Italian: Il Mercenario; aka: A Professional Gun, 1968) on it, albeit with a
different name. I don’t believe that this is an intended easter egg, but the
result of production designers reusing props.
* On the opposite end of the spectrum is Luigi Vanzi’s
The Silent Stranger (Italian: Lo straniero di silenzio; aka: A Stranger in
Japan, 1968), which flips the script, sending writer/star Tony Anthony’s
titular bounty hunter to Edo Japan.
Video
Red Sun was borderline unwatchable on digital video in
the US. There were two pan & scan DVDs from Fox Lorber and UAV, and it
never had an official stateside Blu-ray release. Digital streaming or imports
from Europe were the only available options. Studio Canal premiered the film on
4K UHD in the UK and France in 2024. At its base, Arrow’s US UHD/BD debut
utilizes the Studio Canal’s 4K/HDR master; however, R3Store Studios and Arrow
appear to have done their own grading pass, because the color timing is a bit
different. The images on this page are taken from Arrow’s Blu-ray edition and
I’ve also included some sliders featuring the UK Blu-ray release.
Neither 1080p transfer demonstrates the difference that
the 4K resolution and Dolby Vision upgrades give both 2160p UHD transfers, but
they do illustrate the subtle color differences. For example, the Arrow
transfer corrects Studio Canal’s slightly greenish skies, but also pumps up the
redness of the skin tones. What I can’t show you here is that the Arrow disc’s
Dolby Vision pass is a bit more impressive than SC’s, but not really enough to
garner re-buying the set if you already own the UK or French one. Outside of
these very minor differences, both releases look great. I noticed some slightly
mushy wide-angle details, but textures are consistent, grain is fine and
natural, and there aren’t any major print damage artifacts.
Audio
Red Sun comes fitted with an uncompressed LPCM soundtrack
in its original mono sound. Unlike most of the movies that fall under the
Eurowestern heading, a lot of scenes appear to have been shot using sync’d
sound, which is better for the performance quality, but does lead to issues of
volume and clarity inconsistency. The track has a bit more depth than expected
and exhibits only minor distortion at high volume. The final ingredient in this
Hollywood-tier production crew is legendary composer Maurice Jarre, known best
for collaborating with David Lean on Doctor Zhivago (1965) and Lawrence of
Arabia (1962). Jarre doesn’t go full Lean, nor does he mimic Ennio Morricone,
which would’ve still been in vogue.
Extras
Commentary by
critics C. Courtney Joyner and Henry Parke – Joyner, the author of The
Westerners: Interviews with Actors, Directors, Writers (McFarland, 2009) and
director of Trancers III (1992), and Parke, author of The Greatest Westerns
Ever Made and the People Who Made Them (TwoDot, 2024), explore the making of
Red Sun, the ins & outs of international financing, connections to other
European and American westerns, and the wider careers of the cast & crew
A Global
Western (31:54, HD) – Action/Spectacle: A Sight and Sound Reader (BFI, 2000)
author Jose Arroyo discusses the film’s production, its mash-up quality, its
structure, its release and eventual cult following, and the circular influence
shared by European and Hollywood movies.
The Ghosts of
the Samurai (31:12, HD) – Professor of Japanese Films at the University of
California San Diego Daisuke Miyao focuses mostly on Mifune, the real history
behind the film, the history of samurai fiction, western film influences in
Japan, and connections between Mifune and Delon via Melville’s Le Samouraï.
The Man with
the Gold Tooth (14:56, HD) – Action Figures: Men, Action Films, and
Contemporary Adventure Narratives (Palgrave Macmillan, 2006) author Mark
Gallagher wraps things up with a retrospective look at the career of Alain
Delon.
Archival French
TV promos:
Pour le
cinéma (3:27, SD) – Behind-the-scenes featurette and Terence Young interview.
Un journal
du cinéma (2:03, SD) – Press tour interviews with Terence Young and Toshiro
Mifune.
Theatrical
trailer
Image gallery
