King Sharaman has ordered the city not be sacked, but nooo, Nizam has secret information that Alamut is manufacturing weapons of mass destruction for Persia's enemies. This is a beautiful city surrounding a towering castle. He did it in real time, with little trampolines hidden in the pots, and six pots in that movie are worth the whole kitchen in this one.Īnyway, the evil Nizam insists that the Persian army invade the peaceful city of Alamut. Fairbanks has a 1924 scene where he hops from one giant pot to another. This is all achieved with special effects, ramped up just fast enough to make them totally unbelievable. He also can leap from back to back in a herd of horses, jump across mighty distances, climb like a monkey and spin like a top. The king has a brother named Nizam ( Ben Kingsley), first seen in a sinister closeup that could be subtitled, “I will turn out to be the villain.” He has a van Dyke beard and eyes that glower smolderingly.ĭastan is good at running on rooftops.

The names of the movie's characters seem to have been created by a random-word generator. (1924) and Michael Powell (1940) versions of “ The Thief of Bagdad.”ĭastan is adopted by the king, and raised with two brothers, Garsiv ( Toby Kebbell) and Tus ( Richard Coyle). He's an orphan his birth parents are two movies, the Douglas Fairbanks Sr. This is Dastan, who will grow up to be played by Jake Gyllenhaal. One day in the marketplace, he sees a brave young urchin defend a boy being beaten, and escape pursuit by running across rooftops. That city is ruled by the noble King Sharaman ( Ronald Pickup). Fair enough, since Persia reaches “from the steppes of China to the shores of the Mediterranean,” but it's even more impressive since it's all within a day's journey from the capital city.

This is a land with truly astonishing landscapes: deserts, canyons, craggy monument valleys and a mountain range that resembles the Himalayas. The movie is set in ancient Persia, which is now named Iran.

Cast of prince of persia