#528: Red Sun
Samurai meets gunslinger in this sharp, witty jidai-geki western
Initial release: September 15, 1971
Director: Terence Young
People have made comparisons for years between the Western, that most American of film genres (including when the Italians are doing it) and jidai-geki, Japanese period film, especially the ones involving samurai. Despite the radically different historical and cultural contexts, the big difference in social station for the average gunslinger vs typically noble-born samurai, and obviously typically very different climates, there seems to be an inherent understanding: both represent a kind of idealized warrior class living by a code of honor, operating in a disorganized, lawless expanse of small towns and roving bandits.
And never the twain shall meet… well, not as often as I’d like, anyway.
Fortunately we have James Bond veteran Terence Young’s 1971 east-meets-west caper Red Sun. Billed as the first Western to explicitly acknowledge the links between the Western and chanbara (the samurai-specific subgenre of jidai-geki), and it probably is, it’s got an all-star, international cast that really drives home just how many kinds of people were making their way in the Old West. Charles Bronson (American) is Link, a sharp-witted bandit leading a train robbery. Working with him is Alain Delon (French) as Gauche, a slick, but cruel gunslinger who identifies himself as the villain by his all-black outfit. Said train happens to be carrying the Japanese ambassador to Washington, traveling from San Francisco across the country; when Gauche decides to steal a ceremonial sword intended as a gift to the President, the ambassador assigns his bodyguard to get it back, said bodyguard embodied by none other than Toshiro Mifune (Japanese, natch) in the role of Kuroda, a taciturn but extremely witty samurai. Link, betrayed and left for dead, has his own reasons to track down Gauche, and despite some initial resistance is willing to make a go of working together. Along the way, they pick up former Bond Girl, Ursula Andress (Swiss-German) as a spunky, but conniving brothel girl by the name of Cristina, whose loyalty to Gauche isn’t ironclad. (We also get French fashion model Capucine in a small role as a madam.)
I didn’t know what to expect going into this film. I somewhat imagined it would be a schlocky, perhaps somewhat violent Italo western (which, to be fair, is most Italo westerns) that wouldn’t do Mifune’s character justice, relegating him to the role of sidekick in a muddy, generally simplistic plot. I’ve never been more pleased to be wrong. It’s truly a buddy movie, with these two wildly different characters dragging each other all over the wild west. Bronson and Mifune bounce off each other splendidly; it’s made all the better knowing that Mifune didn’t actually speak English, he just practiced his lines until he got the diction right. That’s right, no dubbing for Mifune! What an actor.
While the villainous Comanche band that serves as the film’s climactic threat are every bit the brownfaced stereotype that is common in Westerns, Italo- or otherwise, Kuroda’s Japan is treated with significantly more respect, Kuroda himself being a cultural outsider who does his best to fit in while not losing sight of where he came from. (At one point he goes to bed with a girl at the brothel, and puts the mattress on the floor, as Japanese people traditionally have slept on the floor. She doesn’t seem to mind.) Perhaps the best scene is about midway through the film, when he and Kuroda, after a fight in the river, sit down to rest and dry off; the two of them get real for a bit as Kuroda explains that the age of samurai is coming to an end, and the reason the sword matters so much is because this could be his last chance to prove his honor in his master’s service. Given that the age of the Old West would be ending a scant few decades later, it feels prescient, as if to say, “it’ll happen to you.”
What struck me about this movie is just how unbelievably funny it is. Bronson and Mifune are an incredible comedic duo (even despite the off-screen language barrier — some things just transcend language.) Both of them are powerhouses, each representing a rather culturally-specific kind of masculinity that speaks to the masculine genres from which they came. Watching Mifune in particular after having seen him in several of Akira Kurosawa’s samurai flicks made me realize how often samurai are depicted these days (especially in anime) as thinner and sleeker, whereas Mifune is 100% all-Japanese wagyu beefcake. Andress — an icon in her own right — and Delon are no slouches either; Delon is smooth and menacing with a sinister grin, and Andress is conniving and petulant in equal measure.
Sure, the plot is pretty cliched for a western, but the added wrinkle of a foreign warrior with his own reasons for trekking across the desert ought to be enough to catch some interest. Combine that with an eclectic score (using a gunshot to launch into a playful theme is certainly a choice, but I particularly enjoy the blend of traditional Japanese music with a southwest twang) and pretty decent cinematography and you’ve got a film that may not surprise you, but will definitely entertain you.
