The Royal Hunt of the Sun

Based on the play of the same name by noted British playwright Peter Shaffer, THE ROYAL HUNT OF THE SUN recounts the spiritual and intellectual battle over gold, freedom, trust, friendship and God building to a boil between the Inca King and living-God Atahualpa (Christopher Plummer) and Spanish explorer Pizarro (Robert Shaw). The film was magnificently filmed on location in South America, with a masterful, intelligent screenplay and superb acting. Shaw, as usual, gives a riveting performance, but Plummer's simmering portrayal of hate, love and confusion screams even louder than the blood curdling cries of Incas slaughtered by Pizarro's conquistadors across the dusty landscape. Two cultures, worlds apart in language and tradition but eerily similar, each rival doomed by his own basic nature -- blinding bigotry and undying belief in his own spiritual supremacy.