The Man Who Would Be King (Sean Connery and Michael Caine) LIMITED EDITION STEELBOOK

So werden Filme heute kaum noch gedreht – aber das sollten sie. Basierend auf der Erzählung von Rudyard Kipling und voller Spektakel, Humor, Spannung und gewagter Wendungen des Schicksals verdient John Hustons Verfilmung von „Der Mann, der König sein wollte“ zu Recht ihren Platz als eines der großen Abenteuer der Filmgeschichte. Sean Connery und Michael Caine – mit gestrecktem Kinn, geraden Schultern und gelegentlich einem verschmitzten Augenzwinkern – spielen die britischen Feldwebel Danny Dravot und Peachy Carnehan. Das Empire wurde von Männern wie diesen beiden aufgebaut. Nun wollen sie ihr eigenes Reich errichten: Sie wagen sich ins abgelegene Kafiristan vor, um reich wie Könige zu werden.

The Man Who Would Be King is a 1975 epic historical adventure film directed by John Huston, adapted by Huston and Gladys Hill from Rudyard Kipling's 1888 novella. It stars Sean Connery and Michael Caine in the leading roles, two rogue ex-soldiers who set off from late-19th-century British India in search of adventure and end up in faraway Kafiristan, where one is taken for a god and made their king. The supporting cast includes Saeed Jaffrey, Shakira Caine and Christopher Plummer as Kipling (giving a name to the novella's anonymous narrator).

In 1885 British India, journalist Rudyard Kipling is approached by a ragged derelict who reveals himself to be Peachy Carnehan, an old acquaintance. Carnehan reveals what happened to him and his comrade-in-arms, Danny Dravot, both ex-sergeants of the British Army.

Three years earlier, Dravot and Carnehan had met Kipling. After stealing his pocket-watch, Carnehan found a masonic tag on the chain and, realising he had robbed a fellow Freemason, felt he had to return it. Carnehan and Dravot were working on a plot to blackmail a local raja, which Kipling foiled by getting the British district commissioner to intervene. Carnehan later blackmails the commissioner to avoid deportation.

Frustrated at the lack of opportunities for lucrative criminal mischief, in an India becoming more civilised, and with few prospects in the United Kingdom, the two visit Kipling with a plan. Forsaking India, they will head with twenty rifles and ammunition to Kafiristan, a country virtually unknown to Europeans since its conquest by Alexander the Great. There they will offer their services to a ruler and help him conquer his neighbours, but proceed to overthrow him and loot the country. Kipling, after first trying to dissuade them, gives Dravot his masonic tag as a token of brotherhood.