Nostalgia Kinky

Arrow continues a very winning year with the restored 4K/Blu-ray editions of Red Sun, the 1971 Hollywood-inspired Euro-western from British director Terence Young. Featuring a breathtaking 4K scan, Red Sun looks incredible on this new Arrow edition, and the company has gathered valuable archival and new extras for a package that is sure to please fans of this cult classic. Here’s my look at this release along with a collection of vintage clippings related to the film’s Kentucky release, where I’m from.

Considering how much I ended up digging Red Sun, I have a small confession to make regarding the film. I avoided seeing it through all these years because it has one of my favorite actors in it. Now, I know that sounds strange, but hear me out. When I was a younger film fan obsessed with all things Alain Delon, the great dark prince of French cinema, I had the misfortune of viewing the dreadful American western he made with equally suffering Tina Aumont, Texas Across the River (1966). Seeing my man in a cowboy hat in a lame Hollywood western bugged me so much that for years I’ve kept Delon’s other high-profile Western, Red Sun, off my radar.

Arrow’s new release provides such a great introduction to Red Sun that I am almost not angry at myself for waiting so long to watch it. Wow, what a gorgeous looking film this is! I bet seeing it screened theatrically would be something. Much of the credit for the film’s incredible visual appeal goes to cinematographer Henri Alekan, the man behind everything from the look of Battle of Algiers (1966) to some of Robbe-Grillet’s most spellbinding works.

Red Sun is perhaps the final great film from Terence Young, the legendary sixties director behind everything from Dr. No (1962) to Mayerling (1968). Young was an unabashedly commercial filmmaker and his filmography is packed with hella-entertaining films. He made half a dozen or so more films after Red Sun, but to me this looks like the pinnacle of his filmmaking ability and most of his later films have been forgotten.

Red Sun is a weird movie, and I like that very much. Obviously indebted to one of my least favorite things, the Hollywood studio-backed western, but it is also clearly the kind of European co-production I love so much. Thankfully, for me at least, its Eurocultness far outweighs its debt to John Ford, and I felt right at home amongst the film’s strangeness for the length of its near two-hour running time.

Along with the film’s incredible visual appeal, the best thing about Red Sun is the marvelous chemistry between stars Charles Bronson and Toshirō Mifune, which thankfully dominates the film. These two are fantastic together, and I frankly would have loved a series of films featuring their rivalrous adventures.

Red Sun’s supporting cast is strong and deep as well. Ursula Andress has never impressed me much as an actress, in all honesty, but she’s delightful here. Daring too, doing much of her own horse/stunt riding. This might be the best performance I have ever seen Andress give.

As for Alain Delon? I was surprised he wasn’t in it all that much. While I did get occasional flashbacks to his earlier Western stint across Dean Martin, for the most part Delon is just fine here as the film’s dressed-in-black villain. I’ll never consider Alain Delon all that suited for the Western genre, but he doesn’t feel at all out of place here like in his earlier film.

Despite the stars and the film’s overwhelmingly fun nature, Red Sun didn’t do all that well here in the States, but it did thankfully across Europe and Japan. Arrow has done great work with this release and the 4K is absolutely splendid. Most of the extras are half-hour video essays about the film, its stars, and its making. These are great, as is the disc’s commentary track. The coolest thing to see for me, though are the two brief shot-on-set reels from French television. We get to see the cast and crew interviewed, and I just loved these grainy black-and-white promos so much.

I was honestly caught off guard by how much I enjoyed Red Sun after avoiding it for so long. The film loses me a bit in its final act, which becomes pure action, but for the most part I found Red Sun beautiful and captivating. Highly recommended. Order from Arrow or here in the States from MVD.

-Jeremy Richey, July 2026-