Toshiro Mifune, Charles Bronson, Alain Delon and Ursula Andress.
That's it, what else do you need? Go watch it already.
OK, fine: Red Sun is a French-Italian coproduction from 1971 shot, like so many Spaghetti Westerns, in Almeria, Spain. It was directed by Terence Young, a brit whose output was as varied as it was diverse; He's best known for a couple of early Bond classics (Russia With Love and Dr No), but his work also includes The Jigsaw Man, Safari and Triple Cross. While the premise - Samurais and cowboys! sounds a bit cynical (as well as awesome), Young was clearly interested in the subject; He had previously written an original script for the '60s OSS117 films that moved the action to Tokyo.
So let's talk about those samurai, then. They're guarding an ambassador from Japan, who's travelling from San Francisco to Washington to present a ceremonial blade to the president.
Unfortunately for them, the train is robbed by a notorious outlaw gang led by Link (Bronson). His second in command, Gauche (Delon) snatches the ceremonial katana and kills one of the samurai... and shortly afterwards betrays Link and leaves him for dead, taking all the loot.
The ambassador revives link, and tasks him to help the surviving samurai, Kuroda (Mifune), with bringing back the weapon before a week is done, or do as honor demands (hara-kiri). He then gives Kuroda a rope with seven knots to remind him of his promise. This, of course, becomes an extremely badass visual reminder as every morning the samurai unties one more knot.
While he tries to escape a few times, Link's goals actually align with Kuroda's; he wants to hunt down Gauche to discover where he took the money from the train robbery. The problem is that the samurai is honor-bound to kill Gauche on sight.
It's a buddy comedy, then, as the two men develop rapport and respect for each other - with the added bonus that since Kuroda of course is the straight, ultra-serious half of the duo, Link must then pick up the slack and be the talky, funny one. And Bronson hits it out of the park, playing his outlaw with a genteel, easy charm, and some pretty damn funny lines.
On their way they pick up Gauche's main squeeze Cristina (Andress), your traditional feisty, amoral western whore, to use as a bargaining chip. They also piss off a band of marauding Comanches on their way, setting the table for one of those forced alliances at the end as Gauche joins the heroes to hold off an indian attack.
It's a little more violent and sleazy than you'd expect, given its pedigree; the action is pretty bloody- mostly bloodstains, but there's a couple of squirting wounds as well, and Andress shows a fair amount of skin. Standard disclaimers for all spaghetti westerns apply, though the threat of sexual violence never crosses over into actual unpleasantness. Link does behave in a pretty ungentlemanly way; it's easy to see why Cristina prefers Gauche over him.
The action is great - I don't think Young had done any westerns, but he'd directed his share of war movies and worked with a killer lineup of actors, so he knows how to frame his trio of badasses for maximum impact. There are a lot of cool stunts, explosions, and a pretty impressive fight in a burning field- but my favorite stunt has to be an early one where Link tries to escape by tumbling down a scree-covered mountainside, and Kuroda just runs down the same slope, nimbly keeping pace. Or maybe an explosion where someone ducks under a detonating train carriage; Seemed pretty dangerous.
The actors are still the main draw, and they're all obviously great. I've already talked enough about the two leads, but Andress is great in a thankless role - scheming and mischievous - and Delon has a lot of fun playing a seriously dickish asshole. I knew I loved him in this when he pretends to kindly help someone up to a moving train, only to shoot him off it, and then looks pleased as punch with himself. Using his charisma for evil.
So yes, this one is very much worth it. I'm not sure why it's not better known.
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