"Rote Sonne" or "Red Sun" is a West German German-language film from 1970. It runs for slightly under 90 minutes and was directed by Rudolf Thome and written by Max Zihlmann. For both, it is probably among their more known career achievements. The cast really does not include many known names at all, but German film buffs may have heard of Uschi Obermaier, Marquard Bohm and Hark Bohm already. With Obermaier in it, you also know immediately the direction the film is heading I am sure, namely a story that relies a lot on sex appeal rather than quality acting or writing. And this not only refers to her, but also to Sylvia Kekulé who I personally found much more appealing (hot redhead!) than the baby-faced Obermaier, even if she was obviously the female protagonist in here and it's probably Obermaier's most known work as an actress.
This is the story of a radical group of women who hate men and kill them quickly after being with them for a couple days in order to prevent themselves from falling in love with them. Oh yeah, that's the story? Sounds bad? It is. Really only the looks of the actresses and the performance by Marquard Bohm make it somewhat bearable to watch and keep it from being a total failure. But the story never makes any sense at all. First of all, the women commit horrible crimes, not just to men who cheat on them, but also to some men who are possibly really nice. How could you like them or cheer for them? It's impossible really. I wanted to cheer for the police catching them, but there is no police at all in this film. The women kill in broad daylight with everybody seeing them, but nothing in terms of police or legal consequences ever happens to them. Extremely unrealistic film. They obviously tried to make an emotional statement with the final shooting scene, especially if you look at who dies and the moral resulting from it, but this also went wrong. it felt extremely hammy how the two were shooting at each other and it almost made me forget about the occasionally decent stuff from Bohm on some earlier occasions in the film. At the very end, Obermaier dragged him down to her level and lets be honest. I would call her pretty attractive and a starlet, but I would not call her an actress, and especially not an actress good enough to carry this film as a lead performer. Watch something else instead. The sun went down really quickly for this one.
This is the story of a radical group of women who hate men and kill them quickly after being with them for a couple days in order to prevent themselves from falling in love with them. Oh yeah, that's the story? Sounds bad? It is. Really only the looks of the actresses and the performance by Marquard Bohm make it somewhat bearable to watch and keep it from being a total failure. But the story never makes any sense at all. First of all, the women commit horrible crimes, not just to men who cheat on them, but also to some men who are possibly really nice. How could you like them or cheer for them? It's impossible really. I wanted to cheer for the police catching them, but there is no police at all in this film. The women kill in broad daylight with everybody seeing them, but nothing in terms of police or legal consequences ever happens to them. Extremely unrealistic film. They obviously tried to make an emotional statement with the final shooting scene, especially if you look at who dies and the moral resulting from it, but this also went wrong. it felt extremely hammy how the two were shooting at each other and it almost made me forget about the occasionally decent stuff from Bohm on some earlier occasions in the film. At the very end, Obermaier dragged him down to her level and lets be honest. I would call her pretty attractive and a starlet, but I would not call her an actress, and especially not an actress good enough to carry this film as a lead performer. Watch something else instead. The sun went down really quickly for this one.