{"id":3903,"date":"2015-05-07T14:03:59","date_gmt":"2015-05-07T14:03:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fantasticcrapcomics.com\/?p=3903"},"modified":"2015-06-03T01:38:55","modified_gmt":"2015-06-03T01:38:55","slug":"red-sun","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fantasticcrapcomics.com\/?p=3903","title":{"rendered":"RED SUN!!!!!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Red Sun<\/strong><\/a> ~ 1971, Terence Young<\/p>\n

\"243770_1020_A\"<\/p>\n

When a botched train robbery leaves a rascally gunfighter betrayed by his gang, he is forced to join forces with a mysterious Asian warrior on a secret mission in the American west. Though they are initially unable to see eye to eye, these two\u00a0slowly form a mutual respect for one anther,\u00a0and embark on a\u00a0grand\u00a0adventure set against the rugged backdrop of the\u00a0American frontier,\u00a0which climaxes\u00a0in a dramatic, bullet riddled\u00a0standoff in an old, Spanish style mission. Sound familiar? It damn should, because Shanghai Noon<\/strong><\/em><\/a> grossed over $99,000,000 worldwide, and that’s an exact description of that movie’s plot.\u00a0The things is, though, I’m actually talking about\u00a0Red Sun, <\/strong><\/em>the movie Shanghai Noon<\/em> ripped off, and guess what? The plot is exactly the same in both films.<\/p>\n

Some folks I’ve spoken to have claimed that Shanghai Noon<\/em> was, in fact,\u00a0an admitted\u00a0remake of Red Sun<\/em>, but after some research I have turned up no official acknowledged of the debt Shanghai Noon<\/em> owes to this film, and therefore\u00a0I think we can safely say this\u00a0was probably\u00a0not an official remake. If I’m correct, then\u00a0a more accurate description of this phenomena would be\u00a0‘blatant plagiarism.’ Any argument that the concept isn’t identical is, frankly, silly, and\u00a0even worse, the script for Red Sun<\/em> must have served as a rough framework for Shanghai Noon<\/em>, because the structure is completely identical in both films, aside from a few added subplots.\u00a0There are even some gags and emotional beats from the 1971\u00a0original\u00a0that you see\u00a0repeated in the 2000 rip off, and\u00a0it’s rare that any remake stays this close to it’s source material, even in the world of actual, and official remakes.\u00a0You could convince me that my own mother was a sock puppet operated by sasquatch before you even had me considering the\u00a0notion that the person who wrote Shanghai Noon<\/em> had never seen Red Sun<\/em>. No other claim could possibly be more unrealistic, without question,\u00a0this was a calculated attempt to repackage something great, and distribute it as something original; Shanghai Noon<\/em> is not homage, it’s theft.<\/p>\n

Now, I’m not\u00a0saying that I hate\u00a0Shanghai Noon<\/em>, far from it, in fact.\u00a0Jackie Chan, who is basically the Mickey Mouse of martial arts, is a global treasure, and\u00a0his cross demographic appeal\u00a0doesn’t need to be defended.\u00a0Similarly, that movie has\u00a0Owen Wilson Owen Wilsoning harder than he ever has before or since, and all of our lives are richer for it.\u00a0What I DO mean to say, however, is\u00a0that\u00a0if you liked Shanghai Noon<\/em> the first time, then maybe you’d also like it the REAL first time; and Red Sun<\/em>\u00a0IS the\u00a0REAL first time.<\/p>\n

So, having established a little bit that these films are remarkably similar to one another, let’s quickly\u00a0talk about\u00a0the few things that\u00a0make them different. First things first, Red Sun<\/em> doesn’t have Jackie Chan, it has Toshiro Mifune.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"red-sun-1971-001-toshino-mifune-medium-shot-looking-down_0\"Awesome.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Mifune was actually born in China, but to Japanese\u00a0parents, and\u00a0is most readily identified as a Japanese actor, so in\u00a0this version,\u00a0our Asian\u00a0delegates come not from China, but from Japan. This changes some superficial aspects of the movie, and gives us more swords, and less kung fu, but that\u00a0it in no way hinders Red Sun’s<\/em> ability to kick ass and\u00a0be awesome.\u00a0Jackie Chan and his hand-to-hand hijinks are fantastic, yes, but Mifune is a bad ass the likes of which we only see a few times per generation, and\u00a0in this movie\u00a0he brings the unreasonably cool art of samurai sword fighting to the American wild west with many a guttural bark and angular scowl, which is every bit as awesome in execution\u00a0as it sounds on paper. Comparing Mifune to Chan is a real apples to oranges type situation, but I’d say the two are\u00a0equally cool, regardless of\u00a0how fundamentally different they are.<\/p>\n

Similarly, where Shanghai Noon<\/em> had Owen Wilson, here we\u00a0have Charles Bronson<\/strong>, the impossibly easy-to-like\u00a0 murder enthusiast from the blood splattered\u00a0Death Wish<\/strong> <\/em>franchise.<\/p>\n

\"RHSyHtX\"Charles Bronson’s natural habitat is pretty much anywhere, provided he’s pointing a gun at someone.<\/strong><\/p>\n

In Red Sun<\/em>, Bronson totally kills it, literally, and figuratively. as an actor, Bronson always managed to balance sardonic, wry charm with gritty, violent menace in a way that made him equally intimidating and likable, and off the charts on both counts. He does that here as well as he ever has, making his character incalculably more bad ass than Wilson’s inept, gun-slinging charmer, but this feels entirely appropriate since Red Sun<\/em> is a much rougher ride.<\/p>\n

And it really is, Red Sun<\/em> is darker, and\u00a0much more\u00a0violent than the good natured and\u00a0outwardly comedic\u00a0Shanghai Noon<\/em>. Charles Bronson does tell a few jokes here and there, but his wisecracking never manages to outpace his\u00a0body count, and Mifune only has two modes; scowl, and kill… Which is so, so awesome. Also, there’s some nudity in Red Sun<\/em>, and the Lucy Liu\/Princess Pei Pei character is absent \u00a0entirely. Instead, our female lead is a prostitute played by Ursula Andress, who Charles Bronson kidnaps in order to piss off the bad guy. So, yeah. Murder and hookers. Maybe\u00a0not a film to watch with the youngsters around, unless you want to train them to be awesome or something.<\/p>\n

While Red Sun’s<\/em> legacy is felt in every\u00a0single\u00a0moment of Shanghai Noon,\u00a0<\/em>the two films actually have differing thesis statements. Red Sun<\/em> is basically a redemption story,\u00a0with Charles Bronson\u00a0playing the real central character, and Mifune\u00a0teetering over\u00a0into sidekick territory. In that film, Bronson and Mifune’s characters are roughly equal in their status as capable warriors, but\u00a0Bronson has no moral compass\u00a0and no\u00a0sense of honor whatsoever. Through his\u00a0meeting with\u00a0Mifune,\u00a0he witnesses\u00a0firsthand\u00a0the sturdy foreigner’s\u00a0unwavering dedication to\u00a0the samurai code, and Bronson slowly\u00a0comes to\u00a0understand\u00a0the error\u00a0in living life as a murderous, wise-cracking shit head. Thus,\u00a0he decides to turn over a new leaf,\u00a0a new, blood drenched, bullet riddled leaf, and maybe pay attention to morality every once-in-a-while. Shanghai Noon<\/em>, on the other hand\u00a0is more about Jackie Chan’s character, who, through his adventures with Owen Wilson, realizes that his centuries old beliefs and customs about honor and dedication to the Chinese Emperor are totally silly, and that instead\u00a0he should just do whatever he wants, because China is really far away. Seriously, that’s the moral to that movie, go back and watch it. There are multiple scenes in the film where Chan says something about his oath to protect the princess, or what have you, and Wilson mocks him dismissively, saying that he’s in America now, the sun may rise in the east, but it sets in the West, so he shouldn’t feel shackled to the honor code he’s lived by for\u00a0his entire life.\u00a0This is basically an existential version of the “if they’re in a different area code, it’s not cheating” defense commonly used by douche bags and adulterers to justify the antics of \u00a0their wayward genitals, and it’s also the exact opposite of the thesis statement seen in Red Sun<\/em>. All things considered, I’m not wild about Shanghai Noon’s<\/em> small minded and culturally reckless thesis statement. ‘Merca.<\/p>\n

Anyway. This review has mostly been about how Shanghai Noon<\/em> ripped off Red Sun<\/em>, instead of actually reviewing Red Sun<\/em>, so I guess\u00a0did kind of a shitty job. Oh well. Sorry, folks!\u00a0Let me quickly say this; Red Sun<\/em> is awesome, and criminally under-appreciated. The Wilson\/Chan\u00a0dynamic you loved in 2000 actually worked even better in 1971 with Mifune and Bronson, and\u00a0honest,\u00a0the talent on screen here isn’t a step down from what you’ve already seen, it’s a step up.\u00a0Plus, crazily enough,\u00a0Red Sun<\/em> is actually made MORE entertaining if you come into it having already seen Shanghai Noon<\/em> like,\u00a0a hundred times. It sort of makes the experience seem almost surreal, like you somehow found\u00a0the “real” Shanghai Noon.<\/em> It feels like some sort of secret movie\u00a0that the world forgot, and that Wilson and Chan tried to bury. All in all, it’s a pretty great find, and oddly enough, I think that Red Sun<\/em> is equally recommendable if you loved Shanghai Noon, <\/em>OR<\/strong> if you hated it.<\/p>\n

Well worth checking out.<\/p>\n

A<\/strong><\/p>\n

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