Kings of the Sun

source: Kings of the Sun

Trailer—Kings of the Sun

Kings of the Sun

Different kind of movie, but an epic movie in the style of the 50's and 60's. Yul Brynner is excellent as the indian chief, lots of action and drama. I wish someone would put it on video or dvd because I would love to add it to my collection along with a lot of other Yul Brynner's movies that nobody seems to have wanted to cash in on. It compares with Taras Bulba and the Ten Commandments

This movie is terrific!. I liked its clever premise of the Mayan culture contacting the Plains Indian culture. The Kon Tiki and Ra voyages of Thor Heyerdahl proved that "primitive" peoples sailed amazingly far distances, so the Mayans reaching North America and meeting a North American tribe is quite feasible. The two cultures' contact was fascinating and involving. I saw this movie years ago, and then once or twice on broadcast television channels. I wish I could see it again! With all the wide variety of cable and satellite channels now available, I wish one of them would show The Kings Of The Sun....... Or that it would become available on video or DVD.......

Kings is an entertaining epic, the kind that faded out at the end of the 1960s. Yul is terrific but the rest of the cast is all wrong. Richard Basehart and Barry Morse were great actors but are totally miscast as Mayans. Shirley Anne Field is gorgeous and sexy but again, veddy British and miscast. Brad Dexter and Leo Gordon are way miscast; they belong in WW 2 war movies or lighting Sinatra's cigarettes. And George Chakiris is not only miscast but so bland and spiritless that it's impossible to believe that he could go mano-a-mano with Yul. Otherwise I did enjoy Kings of the Sun! I saw it just recently on a beautiful widescreen print and it brought back memories of seeing it as child in the movies.

This would be just an average studio movie but for a clever premise (Mayans flee across the Gulf of Mexico to establish a community in North America) and Yul Brynner's stunning screen presence. Brynner portrays a noble Indian chief as only he could do with tremendous screen presence and boundless charisma. When I first saw the movie, I loved the climactic battle scene but now I relish the human drama in Yul Brynner's character most. One of his best performances!

J. Lee Thompson making another adventure, working this time with a great gifted actor who was Yul Brynner and the extremely talented Richard Basehart of Fellini's "La Strada". But if "La Strada" is probably the best movie of all time, this one it's just a show of hundreds of extras dressed in some costumes that should look like ancient Maya, fighting on a seashore. Shirley Anne Field was beautiful and George Chakiris was just a presence.

Pretty-boy George Chakiris wisely keeps his shirt on opposite a buffed up Yul Brynner on whose form Joseph MacDonald's camera dwells with unadorned admiration. Had he paid similar attention to the insipid love interest Shirley Anne Field, people would complain about the sexual objectification of women, but Brynner seems to enjoy all the attention. J. Lee Thompson keeps the action moving along and the story entertaining, even though it is all highly predictable, and Richard Basehart looks suitably embarassed to be seen in an assortment of silly headgear and hairdos.