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By the mid-1960s, Westerns had become extremely popular in West Germany due to a series of films adapted from the novels of Karl May. In response, DEFA – the state-operated studio of East Germany or the GDR – made its own film set in the Old West. But The Sons of Great Bear wasn’t just designed to compete with West German genre films – it was also intended as a pointed corrective to the American frontier myth, pitting its Native American protagonists against violent white settlers in a battle for survival.
Adapted from Liselotte Welskopf-Henrich’s book series of the same name, The Sons of Great Bear stars Gojko Mitić as Tokei-Ihto, a Native American warrior belonging to a Dakota tribe. As a young man, Tokei-Ihto witnesses his father’s murder at the hands of Jim Fred Clark (Jiří Vršťala), alias “Red Fox,” a scout who suspects there is gold to be found on the Dakota lands. Later, Tokei-Ihto is forced to defend his people from Red Fox as he tries to take possession of the gold by any means necessary.
Followed by the likes of Trail of the Falcon, Ulzana, Blood Brothers and Severino, The Sons of Great Bear made a star of Gojko Mitić and launched an entire series of Westerns at DEFA, known in East Germany as Indianerfilme and historically nicknamed “Red Westerns” due to their socialist politics. The Masters of Cinema series is proud to present The Sons of Great Bear on Blu-ray for the first time ever in the UK from an astonishing 2K restoration by the DEFA Foundation.
