The Return of a Man Called Horse

Independent Films, Film Profiles

The Return of a Man Called Horse is a 1976 American western film directed by Irvin Kershner involving a conflict over territory between Sioux Indians and white men. It is the sequel to A Man Called Horse.Richard Harris reprises his role as Horse, a British aristocrat who has become a member of a tribe of Lakota Sioux. It was followed by The Triumphs of a Man Called Horse in 1982.Set in the 1840s, trappers with government support force the Yellow Hands Sioux off their sacred land. The Indians retreat, but await supernatural punishment to descend on their usurpers. An English aristocrat Lord John Morgan known as Horse (Harris) discovers that the Yellow Hand people have been largely massacred or put into slavery by the unscrupulous white traders and returns to America to live with the tribe. The few survivors, including wise old Running Bull and stubborn old Elk Woman have gone into the badlands and been forced to eat their dogs. "Why did you return?" asks Elk Woman. "I had to come back," says Morgan. "I had to prove something to myself... there was an empty place in my soul. I could not forget." He finds the tribe dispirited, because of the actions of the trappers, and he begins to devise a strategy to overpower the trappers stronghold, convincing the Indians to take direct action. Soon even the Indian women and boys are assigned tasks to aid the assault on regaining their ancestral land.