Sole rosso sangue (1994)

Curiosità

Red Sun Rising is a 1994 American martial arts action film directed by Francis Megahy and starring Don "The Dragon" Wilson, James Lew, Terry Farrell, Mako, Michael Ironside and Edward Albert. Wilson plays a Japanese cop who travels to Los Angeles and teams up with a reluctant American counterpart (Farrell) to track down the gang responsible for the murder of his partner, whose hitman (Lew) is an expert in the ancient art of the death touch. The full title, as it appears on the title card, is Red Sun Rising: Based on the Legend of the Death Touch.

Production

The impetus for the film came from Don Wilson and friend Chris Penn's desire to work together again. Wilson brought the project to Paul Maslak, editor of Inside Kung Fu and his manager of four years. Maslak and Neva Friedenn, a veteran martial arts film distributor and PR, had co-produced Wilson's previous vehicle Out for Blood with PM Entertainment, and the pair was now looking to branch out into production full time.

British director Francis Megahy was recommended for the project by his agent, who was also a personal friend. It was his American feature debut. He had shot his share of fisticuffs on the 1988 Pierce Brosnan vehicle Taffin, but never such intricately choreographed martial arts. He was happy to delegate oversight of those scenes to Maslak, Wilson and their fight coordinator of choice, Art Camacho.

The basic pitch, which came from Penn, was for a "reverse Black Rain" where a Japanese cop traveled to the U.S. and allied with a begrudging local officer. Ever since learning that the current Japanese police descended from reformed samurai, Maslak had wanted to retell their ancestral rivalry against the ninja in the context of a modern cop film. Maslak and Penn's ideas were merged to form the basis of Red Sun Rising.

Maslak added the concept of the dim mak ('death touch'), which is more Chinese than Japanese, to the story due to the sheer narrative possibilities it offered. While the death touch is largely regarded as a folk belief, and Wilson acknowledges it as fictional, Camacho insists that some lethal punching techniques do exist. However, what is shown in the film was invented by him and James Lew.

Chris Penn, who was originally going to co-star as the American cop, dragged his feet to sign his contract after he was cast in True Romance, and confessed to Wilson that his agent had asked him to refrain from participating in lower-budget films. Ashok Amritraj recommended Terry Farrell as his female replacement. Michael Ironside took the role of Farrell's superior as a favor, when mutual friend Steve James contacted him on Wilson's behalf.

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