Kings of the Sun is a
1963The year 1963 in film involved some significant events.-Events:* June 12 - Cleopatra starring Elizabeth Taylor, Rex Harrison and Richard Burton premieres at the Rivoli Theatre in New York City....
movieA film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...
directed by
J. Lee ThompsonJohn Lee Thompson , better known as J. Lee Thompson, was an English film director, active in England and Hollywood.- Early years :...
set in
MesoamericaMesoamerica is a region and culture area in the Americas, extending approximately from central Mexico to Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica, within which a number of pre-Columbian societies flourished before the Spanish colonization of the Americas in the 15th and...
at the time of the conquest of
Chichen ItzaChichen Itza is a large pre-Columbian archaeological site built by the Maya civilization located in the northern center of the Yucatán Peninsula, in the Municipality of Tinúm, Yucatán state, present-day Mexico....
by
Hunac CeelHunac Ceel Cauich was a Mayan general from Telchaquillo who conquered Chichen Itzá and founded the Cocom dynasty...
. The story is about Mayan refugees who sail to the Mississippi River Valley and lay the foundation for the
Mississippian cultureThe Mississippian culture was a mound-building Native American culture that flourished in what is now the Midwestern, Eastern, and Southeastern United States from approximately 800 CE to 1500 CE, varying regionally....
complex. The film stars
Yul BrynnerYul Brynner was a Russian-born actor of stage and film. He was best known for his portrayal of Mongkut, king of Siam, in the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical The King and I, for which he won an Academy Award for Best Actor for the film version; he also played the role more than 4,500 times on...
(Black Eagle),
George ChakirisGeorge Chakiris is an American-Greek dancer, singer and actor.-Early life:Chakiris was born in Norwood, Ohio, to Steven and Zoe Chakiris, immigrants from Greece. Chakiris studied at the American School of Dance....
(Balam),
Shirley Anne FieldShirley Anne Field is a British actress who has performed on stage, film and television since 1955.-Early Life:...
(Ixchel),
Richard BasehartJohn Richard Basehart was an American actor. He starred in the 1960s television science fiction drama Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, in the role of Admiral Harriman Nelson.-Career:...
(head priest),
Barry MorseHerbert "Barry" Morse was an Anglo-Canadian actor of stage, screen, and radio best known for his roles in the ABC television series The Fugitive and the British sci-fi drama Space: 1999...
,
Brad DexterBrad Dexter , was an American actor.-Life and career:Dexter was born Boris Malanovich , in Goldfield, Nevada, of Serbian parentage. He spoke Serbian as his first language. Burly, dark and handsome, Brad Dexter was usually given supporting roles of a rugged character...
,
Armando SilvestreArmando Silvestre is a Mexican film actor. He has appeared in over 190 films since 1948.-Selected filmography:* Hiawatha * Rosanna * Santo Contra los Zombis * Geronimo...
,
Victoria Vetri-Biography:Vetri was born in San Francisco, California to parents who were immigrants from Italy. She attended Hollywood High School in Hollywood, California between 1959 and 1963 and later studied art at Los Angeles City College. She began acting and modelling in her teens. Vetri is a singer and...
(Ixzubin), and
Leo GordonLeo Vincent Gordon was an American movie and television character actor as well as a screenplay writer and novelist. He specialized in playing brutish bad guys during more than forty years in film and television....
as
Hunac CeelHunac Ceel Cauich was a Mayan general from Telchaquillo who conquered Chichen Itzá and founded the Cocom dynasty...
. It was produced by
Lewis J. RachmilLewis J. Rachmil was an American film producer and art director. He was nominated for an Academy Award in the category Best Art Direction for the film Our Town. In the mid and late 1940s, he produced several of William Boyd's popular Hopalong Cassidy B-Westerns...
, with a music score by
Elmer BernsteinElmer Bernstein was an American composer and conductor best known for his many film scores. In a career which spanned fifty years, he composed music for hundreds of film and television productions...
, and released by
United ArtistsUnited Artists Corporation is an American film studio. The original studio of that name was founded in 1919 by D. W. Griffith, Charles Chaplin, Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks....
.
Plot
Balam is the son of the ruler of a Mayan tribe who use wooden swords (with
obsidianObsidian is a naturally occurring volcanic glass formed as an extrusive igneous rock.It is produced when felsic lava extruded from a volcano cools rapidly with minimum crystal growth...
edges). His father is killed in battle against steel-blade armed rivals led by Hunac Ceel. Balam succeeds to the throne, but is convinced by his advisers, including the head priest, to lead his followers away from the Yucatán, sail to the American Gulf Coast region, so they might regain their strength and fight again another day.
This new land, though, is a province occupied by an Indian tribe led by Black Eagle, and they are none too pleased about these strange, uninvited immigrants. In a small raid to capture one of the Mayans, Black Eagle is wounded and taken captive to the Mayans' fortified settlement. Balam's love interest Ixchel tends to the Indian's wounds and gains an interested suitor, one who is more forthcoming with his love for her. Eventually, the two leaders agree to coexist in peace. However, they quarrel, and the Indians depart, just as Hunac Ceel finds him. His army mounts a furious attack, but is eventually defeated by the united front of Indians and the transplanted Mayans. Black Eagle is killed in the fighting, resolving the love triangle.
External links