''The Power of One'' is a 1992

drama film In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. Drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular super- ...

loosely based on

Bryce Courtenay Arthur Bryce Courtenay, (14 August 1933 – 22 November 2012) was a South African-Australian advertising director and novelist. He is one of Australia's best-selling authors, notable for his book '' The Power of One''. Background and early ye ...

's 1989 novel of the same title. Set in

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring coun ...

during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

, the film centers on the life of Peter Philip Kenneth Keith, an

English South African The British diaspora in Africa is a population group broadly defined as English-speaking white Africans of mainly (but not only) British descent who live in or come from Sub-Saharan Africa. The majority live in South Africa and other Southern A ...

boy raised under

apartheid Apartheid (, especially South African English: , ; , "aparthood") was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia) from 1948 to the early 1990s. Apartheid was ...

, and his conflicted relationships with a German

pianist A pianist ( , ) is an individual musician who plays the piano. Since most forms of Western music can make use of the piano, pianists have a wide repertoire and a wide variety of styles to choose from, among them traditional classical music, ja ...

, a

Coloured Coloureds ( af, Kleurlinge or , ) refers to members of multiracial ethnic communities in Southern Africa who may have ancestry from more than one of the various populations inhabiting the region, including African, European, and Asian. South ...

boxing coach and an Afrikaner romantic interest. Directed and edited by

John G. Avildsen John Guilbert Avildsen (December 21, 1935 – June 16, 2017) was an American film director. He is perhaps best known for directing ''Rocky'' (1976), which earned him the Academy Award for Best Director, and the first three ''The Karate Kid'' fil ...

, the film stars Stephen Dorff, John Gielgud, Morgan Freeman, Armin Mueller-Stahl, and Daniel Craig in his feature film debut.

Plot

Born in 1930 to a recently widowed Englishwoman on a homestead in South Africa, little Peter Philip Kennith Keith (nicknamed 'PK') is schooled in the ways of England by his mother and the ways of Africa by a Zulu nanny, whose son Tonderai is also his best friend. However, their peaceful life is soon shattered when the farm's cattle are claimed by '' rinderpest''. PK's mother succumbs to a nervous breakdown, and he is sent away to a conservative

Afrikaans Afrikaans (, ) is a West Germanic language that evolved in the Dutch Cape Colony from the Dutch vernacular of Holland proper (i.e., the Hollandic dialect) used by Dutch, French, and German settlers and their enslaved people. Afrikaans gr ...

boarding school while she recovers. Being the only English student at the boarding school, PK earns universal contempt from his Afrikaner fellows—particularly from Jaapie Botha, the oldest student. The extreme bullying strikes PK with a severe case of bed wetting, a habit which he eventually overcomes with local sangoma Dabula Manzi. In conquering his nightmares, PK is given a chicken, whom he names Mother Courage, and which becomes his closest companion. When war suddenly breaks out in Europe, the Afrikaner students kidnap PK and Mother Courage and has them tried before a mock Nazi court where Botha elaborates on the depth of his hatred for the British—a people he holds responsible for atrocities committed during the

Second Boer War The Second Boer War ( af, Tweede Vryheidsoorlog, , 11 October 189931 May 1902), also known as the Boer War, the Anglo–Boer War, or the South African War, was a conflict fought between the British Empire and the two Boer Republics (the So ...

. The Afrikaner boys hang Mother Courage and kill her with a rock. When PK physically retaliates against Botha, they attempt to execute him in a similar manner, but are interrupted by a teacher who later oversees Botha's expulsion. With his mother dead, PK finds himself living with his grandfather in Barberton. He eventually finds a mentor in Karl "Doc" von Vollensteen, a lonely

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) **Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ge ...

musician whose family was executed by the Nazis. Doc warms to PK and under his guidance PK soon becomes an excellent pianist. He is soon interned as an enemy alien for the rest of the war, but PK continues to visit him regularly in prison. Doc introduces the boy to Geel Piet, a

Cape Coloured Cape Coloureds () are a South African ethnic group consisted primarily of persons of mixed race and Khoisan descent. Although Coloureds form a minority group within South Africa, they are the predominant population group in the Western C ...

inmate who trains him to be an excellent boxer. Piet also impresses on PK his

mantra A mantra ( Pali: ''manta'') or mantram (मन्त्रम्) is a sacred utterance, a numinous sound, a syllable, word or phonemes, or group of words in Sanskrit, Pali and other languages believed by practitioners to have religious, ...

: "first with the head, then with the heart". A maturing PK begins to express sympathy towards black prisoners, who are detained under appalling conditions and frequently beaten by the Afrikaner guards. He works with Doc to distribute contraband among the Africans, writes their letters to home, and shares their many sufferings. The war does not end happily for PK, as Doc is repatriated and Piet is killed by a guard. PK goes to study at the prestigious Prince of Wales School in

Johannesburg Johannesburg ( , , ; Zulu language, Zulu and xh, eGoli ), colloquially known as Jozi, Joburg, or "The City of Gold", is the largest city in South Africa, classified as a Megacity#List of megacities, megacity, and is List of urban areas by p ...

. While attending a boxing championship, he is enamoured by Maria Marais, the Afrikaans daughter of a leading National Party official. Since her strict father will not permit them to see each other, they begin dating in secret. On one such outing they are introduced to Gideon Duma, a prominent boxer in Alexandra, a black township. Duma's passion for resisting

inspires PK, and he opens an English school for Africans. Maria's father, incensed by the couple's ongoing relationship and PK's ties to a multiracial gym, leads him to request a formal investigation by one of his South African Police contacts, Colonel Breyten. Breyten and his sergeant, an embittered Jaapie Botha, place PK under surveillance for subversion. His clashes with the police (which result in detainment of numerous people he knows) come to a head when Duma is severely injured and Maria is killed during a raid on their school in a church along with numerous other innocent people. Maddened by grief, PK considers going to study at Oxford in England, but is consoled by a recovering Duma who shows him that all his teachings have finally shown progress and reminds him of all the good he can still do in Africa. Botha leads a violent raid on Alexandra the following night which results in Breyten's death at the hands of an enraged villager. Botha threatens to shoot Elias Mlungisi, the local boxing promoter, only to be confronted by PK. They fight, and PK finally defeats his childhood enemy. Despite the loss, a bloodied and vindictive Botha is still bent on killing him with a hidden pistol, but an arriving Gideon Duma brutally kills Botha with a cricket bat to the head before he can fire. Now wanted fugitives from the apartheid government, PK and Duma vow to continue a campaign against racial injustice with the aid of the other survivors. PK's closing narration identifies meaningful voices during his life from his nanny to Doc, Geel Piet, Dabula Manzi, and finally Maria.

Cast

* Guy Witcher as PK at age 7 *

Simon Fenton Simon Fenton (born 10 June 1976) is an English actor who has appeared in several different television roles. One of his earliest roles was in ''Tom's Midnight Garden'', and he also appeared in the ITV children's series '' T-Bag and the Sunstone ...

as PK at age 12 * Stephen Dorff as PK at age 18 * Armin Mueller-Stahl as Doc *Jeremiah Mnisi as Dabula Manzi * Ian Roberts as Hoppie Gruenewald * John Gielgud as St. John, the Headmaster * Fay Masterson as Maria Marais * Morgan Freeman as Geel Piet * Daniel Craig as Sergeant Jaapie Botha *Robbie Bulloch as the teenage Botha *Dominic Walker as Morrie Gilbert *Faith Edwards as Miriam Sisulu * Alois Moyo as Gideon Duma * Brian O'Shaughnessy as Colonel Breyten *

Marius Weyers Marius Weyers (born 3 February 1945, in Johannesburg) is a South African actor. He lives with his wife Yvette, an artist in her own right, in Rooi-Els in the Western Cape. He received international attention playing Andrew Steyn, a bumbling s ...

as Professor Daniel Marais * Clive Russell as Sergeant Bormann * Winston Ntshona as Mlungisi *Nomadlozi Kubheka as Nanny *Mark Clements as school boy

Critical reception

The film received mixed reviews. Review aggregate

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wan ...

currently ranks the film at a 39% 'rotten' rating based on 18 reviews, with an average score of 5/10.

Roger Ebert Roger Joseph Ebert (; June 18, 1942 – April 4, 2013) was an American film critic, film historian, journalist, screenwriter, and author. He was a film critic for the ''Chicago Sun-Times'' from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, Ebert beca ...

of the ''

Chicago Sun-Times The ''Chicago Sun-Times'' is a daily newspaper published in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Since 2022, it is the flagship paper of Chicago Public Media, and has the second largest circulation among Chicago newspapers, after the '' Chicago ...

'' gave it two and a half stars out of four, stating that the nature of troubles of South Africa "are too complex to be reduced to a formula in which everything depends on who shoots who", but did add "there are some nice touches," such as the locations and Gielgud's performance. Morgan Freeman later said in an interview that the film "wasn't as good as I had hoped it would be."

Soundtrack

References

External links

*
''The Power of One''
at

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Power Of One 1992 films 1992 drama films 1990s sports films American boxing films American drama films Apartheid films Cold War films Films about bullying Films about racism Films about race and ethnicity Films based on Australian novels Films directed by John G. Avildsen Films scored by Hans Zimmer Films set in South Africa Films shot in Zimbabwe Films with screenplays by Robert Mark Kamen Regency Enterprises films StudioCanal films Village Roadshow Pictures films Warner Bros. films Films produced by Arnon Milchan 1990s English-language films 1990s American films