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

Man gör sällan filmer på det här sättet längre – men det borde man. John Hustons film ”The Man Who Would Be King”, som bygger på Rudyard Kiplings berättelse och är fullspäckad med spektakulära scener, humor, spänning och oväntade vändningar, förtjänar sin plats som ett av filmhistoriens stora äventyr. Sean Connery och Michael Caine – med utsträckta hakan, raka axlar och en och annan listig blinkning – spelar de brittiska sergeanterna Danny Dravot och Peachy Carnehan. Imperiet byggdes av män som dessa två. Nu är de ute efter att bygga upp ett eget imperium: de ger sig ut på en färd till det avlägset belägna Kafiristan för att bli rika som kungar.

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.