Kim is a 1984 British

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 television film directed by John Howard Davies

John Howard Davies

John Howard Davies was an English television director and producer and former child actor.Davies was born in Paddington, London, the son of the scriptwriter Jack Davies...

 and based on Rudyard Kipling

Rudyard Kipling

Joseph Rudyard Kipling was an English poet, short-story writer, and novelist chiefly remembered for his celebration of British imperialism, tales and poems of British soldiers in India, and his tales for children. Kipling received the 1907 Nobel Prize for Literature...

's novel Kim

Kim (novel)

Kim is a picaresque novel by Rudyard Kipling. It was first published serially in McClure's Magazine from December 1900 to October 1901 as well as in Cassell's Magazine from January to November 1901, and first published in book form by Macmillan & Co. Ltd in October 1901...

. The film stars Peter O'Toole

Peter O'Toole

Peter Seamus Lorcan O'Toole is an Irish actor of stage and screen. O'Toole achieved stardom in 1962 playing T. E. Lawrence in Lawrence of Arabia, and then went on to become a highly-honoured film and stage actor. He has been nominated for eight Academy Awards, and holds the record for most...

, Bryan Brown

Bryan Brown

Bryan Neathway Brown, AM is an Australian actor.-Early life:Brown was born in Sydney, the son of John Brown and Molly Brown, a house cleaner who worked as a pianist in the early days of the Langshaw School of Ballet. He grew up in the south-western Sydney suburb of Bankstown and began working at...

, John Rhys-Davies

John Rhys-Davies

John Rhys-Davies is a Welsh actor and voice actor. He is perhaps best known for playing the charismatic Arab excavator Sallah in the Indiana Jones films and the dwarf Gimli in The Lord of the Rings trilogy...

, Nadira

Nadira (actress)

-References:* Rediff.com* -External links:* . Audio podcast by Eric Molinsky discussing Nadira and other Jewish women in Indian cinema...

, Jalal Agha

Jalal Agha

Jalal Agha was an Indian actor and director in Bollywood films. Son of the popular comedian Agha, Jalal studied acting at the Film and Television Institute of India, Pune.-Career:...

, Raj Kapoor

Raj Kapoor

Known as Ranbir Raj Kapoor Rāj Kapūr, 14 December 1924 – 2 June 1988), also known as The Show-Man, was an Indian film actor, producer and director of Hindi cinema. He was the winner of nine Filmfare Awards, while his films Awaara and Boot Polish were nominated for the Palme d'Or at the...

 and Ravi Sheth in the title role.

Plot

Kim (Ravi Sheth) is a 15-year-old street orphan in Lahore of the 19th century (1894). Kim thinks he is native, but he's actually of British origin, the son of an Irish soldier and an Indian mother. He is taken up as a guide by a travelling Tibetan lama (Peter O'Toole) on a search for a river where Budda hurled an arrow, turning into a place of redemption. When he finds his father's regimen and the British military discover his origins and his real name, Kimball O'Hara, he's placed in an English college. His nature, however, is opposed to the regimentation expected for the son of a British soldier, and he rebels. His familiarity with Indian life and his ability to pass as an Indian child allows him to function as a spy for the British as they attempt to thwart revolution and invasion of India. Rejoining his holy man, Kim is trained by an Englishman called Babu (John Rhys Davies) to become a British spy and receives orders from a British Colonel (Julian Glover) who assigns him a risky mission in the Big Game, the behind-the-scenes struggle between Imperial Britain and Russia for supremacy in Afghanistan and Central Asia. He also befriends an astute Afghan horse-dealer named Mahbub Ali (Bryan Brown), a British Secret Service agent, who helps him with his task.

Shooting and casting

The story is set in several locations filmed in India, as the Northern frontier, Lahore barracks, Bunar, Umbella barracks, Delhi, Shaharampoor and Indian mountains near the Himalayas for the final scenes of the fighting against Russian spies.
The screenplay was essentially close to Kipling's original (much more so than the 1950 movie with Erroll Flynn), except for an added subplot about the love of a deserting English soldier with an Indian girl. The ending is also slightly different than the original novel and for political correctness, some anachronistic snipes at the British Raj were inserted.
The casting was also subject to controversy, with white actors playing local characters.