Red Sun (1971)

An outlaw (Charles Bronson) leads a group of bandits in robbing a train. The train happens to be carrying the Japanese ambassador (Tetsu Nakamura) to Washington D.C. and one of the bandits (Alain Delon) kills one of the ambassador's samurai bodyguards and steals a sword intended as a gift to the President. He also leaves the leader (Bronson) for dead and runs off with the money. The surviving samurai bodyguard (Toshiro Mifune) and the outlaw team up and go in pursuit for different reasons: one for money, the other for honor. Directed by Terence Young (DR. NO), this international  western (filmed in Spain) is good fun. Its oddball international cast: American (Bronson), Japanese (Mifune), Swiss (Ursula Andress) and two French (Delon, Capucine) give an almost surreal quality to the film. You never really believe for a moment that you're actually in the American West but some sort of European movieland fantasy. I suppose one could say the same of Leone's spaghetti westerns but his films transcended the genre. RED SUN's narrative is simplistic but Henri Alekan's (ROMAN HOLIDAY) cinematography is pleasing to the eye. The film's Indian attack finale is a corker and even Maurice Jarre's pedestrian score rises to the occasion for that sequence. With Anthony Dawson (DIAL M FOR MURDER).