Shakira Video:

		List Price: $19.98		Label: Warner Home Video Salesrank: 1698 Released: November 19, 1997
		Our Price: $14.07
		Used Price: $13.42
		MPAA Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested) Media: DVD

Editorial Review:
One of the all-time greats! Sean Connery and Michael Caine star in Rudyard Kipling's tale of British sergeants out to bluff and bully their way to wealth in remote Kafiristan. Directed by the legendary John Huston. Year: 1975Running Time: 129 min.System Requirements:Starring: Sean Connery Michael Caine Christopher Plummer; Director: John Huston; Special Features:Production Notes Theatrical Trailer Featurette Interactive Menus; Video Format: Widescreen 2.35:1 aspect ratio Enhanced for 16x9 TVs; Subtitles: French Spanish English; Audio Tracks: English: Dolby Digital Mono; # Discs: 1; Produced by John Foreman; written by John Huston Gladys Hill Rudy; running time of 129 minutes; Closed Captioned.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: DRAMA Rating: PG UPC: 012569085824

Description of The Man Who Would Be King:
A grandly entertaining, old-fashioned adventure based on the Rudyard Kipling short story, The Man Who Would Be King is the kind of rousing epic about which people said, even in 1975, "Wow! They don't make 'em like that anymore!" When director John Huston (The Maltese Falcon, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, The African Queen) first started trying to make the film, with Gable and Bogart, the project was derailed by the latter's death. It was a few decades before Huston was able to finally realize his dream movie--and with an unimprovable cast. Sean Connery and Michael Caine are, respectively, Daniel Dravot and Peachy Carnahan, a pair of lovably roguish British soldiers who set out to make their fortunes by conning the priests of remote Kafiristan into making them kings. It's a rollicking tale, an epic satire of imperialism, and the good-natured repartee shared by Caine and Connery is pure gold. In today's screen adventures, humor is usually imposed on the material by a writer or director trying to make some kind of cleverly self-aware comment ("Hey, we know it's a movie!"), but that sort of jokiness can create so much ironic distance that it pushes the audience right out of the picture. Huston lets the humor emerge naturally from the characters, for whom we wind up caring more deeply than we ever expected. The digital video disc includes a wonderful documentary on the making of the film. --Jim Emerson

The Man Who Would Be King Reviews:
Regal Chemistry...A Peachy Movie
2008-06-18 - This is my all time favorite movie. Mix in two great actors, add British imperialism with a dash of human greed and you end up with a recipe for an outstanding, humorous adventure story with a tragic ending.

It doesn't get any better than this. If you have to buy one DVD, this is it.

Buddy film extraordinaire
2008-06-14 - Connery & Caine combined for what is quite possibly the greatest "buddy film" of all time. 33 years later & it has lost none of its appeal!

Classic Rudyard Kipling protrayed by a classic cast
2008-04-27 - Sean Connery, Michael Caine, and Christopher Plummer directed by John Huston. . . It doesn't get much better than this! The movie is an old fashioned adventure tale centering around two ex-British army pals trying to make (or steal) their fortune in India. Sean Connery's character is mistaken for a returning god by a tribe in the remote mountains of Kafiristan. Unfortunatley, the character starts to believe that he just might be destined to rule. Trivia buffs should pay close attention to the native girl who is the object of Sean Connery's affection. She is Shakira Caine, a former beauty queen and Michael Caine's real life wife at the time this movie was made.

Poor Sound Quality
2008-03-16 - The only negative thing that I have to say about this item was the extremely poor sound quality. The TV volume was at its max and we could just hear the movie. I wish that I had complained a lot earlier and had sent it back for a replacement. It really is a great movie.

Huston does Kipling...Connery and Caine shine in "buddy flick"...
2008-03-08 - Telling a grim morality tale with a good amount of humor amidst settings of grandeur and a with sense of high adventure, THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING reminds me of Kipling's more famous buddy tale of exotic adventure among dangerous natives--GUNGA DIN.

But here the telling is more leisurely and for awhile we don't know where the story is going. First, it seems a comedy, then the more adventurous elements take over and finally it goes for a gripping climax in which all hell breaks loose when the two con men are about to get their comeuppance.

As the decidedly shady characters, corrupt and acting out of a simple desire for riches, SEAN CONNERY and MICHAEL CAINE give probably the most skillful performances of their careers. My only complaint about Caine is that sometimes his Cockney accent (spoken in a hushed voice at a key moment in the film) is hard to understand. Some post-production dubbing would have been advisable.

For all of its sense of adventure, the film often plods along at a snail's pace between its more colorful episodes and could have been more tightly edited to tell its story in far less running time.

Frankly, I enjoyed the tongue-in-cheek GUNGA DIN infinitely more than this Huston film. That's not to say the film is a failure. The cinematography is great and all of the performances are extremely well done--with special mention of CHRISTOPHER PLUMMER who is highly effective as Rudyard Kipling himself. His final scene is a memorable close-up after Caine has told him the truth about the harrowing end of their adventure.

Although highly entertaining at times, it's easy to see why this story of two con men is not considered to be one of John Huston's greatest. By no means a failure, it nevertheless has enough flaws and is just uneven enough to make you realize it could have been a truly great adventure film.