The Man Who Would Be King

John Chard

2014-08-28

⭐ 9

From the upper echelon of boys own adventures comes - The Man Who Would Be King! Two ex-servicemen are lolling around colonial India, it's just the start of a journey that will see them in Kafiristan. Here the mountain dwellers believe the rouge white fellows to be Gods, and thus things are about to get very interesting indeed. Written by master writer Rudyard Kipling, directed by behemoth John Huston and starring British legends Sean Connery & Michael Caine, there really isn't any way this film could have failed - sure enough the picture exudes a classy structure that is coupled with de…

Filipe Manuel Neto

2023-06-20

⭐ 10

**A magnificent adventure film that adapts to the cinema a short story by Rudyard Kipling about greed, and the price that can be paid for it.** Born in India, Rudyard Kipling is one of the most distinguished British writers of the late 19th century, and perhaps one of the most prolific. Seeing a list of his written work is an exercise in patience, and if we think that he wrote it all in sunlight or gas and using a dip pen, without computers or electric light to see better, it is truly remarkable. Coming from an aristocratic family closely linked to colonial life, he had a conservative up…

CinemaSerf

2025-01-02

⭐ 7

"Danny" (Sean Connery) and "Peachy" (Michael Caine) are a pair of chancers at the height of the Raj in British India, who decide that they need to go make their fortune. Thanks to a little help from Rudyard Kipling (Christopher Plummer), they learn of the land of Kafiristan up on the Hindu Kush where the map makers have yet to arrive. Using all of their wits and guile, the pair head north and eventually find themselves training an army of agrarian villagers with the help of the translator "Billy the Fish" (Saeed Jaffrey). Pretty soon they have themselves a reputation, and that only becomes mor…