Shere Khan
Encyclopedia
Shere Khan is a fictional
tiger
of the India
n jungle. He is the chief antagonist in two of Rudyard Kipling
's Jungle Book
stories featuring Mowgli
. Shere Khan is named after an Afghan
Prince (Sher Shah Suri
, The Tiger King, although it also translates to The Lion King) Kipling encountered on his trips to Afghanistan
. The word Shere translates to "Tiger" in Urdu
/Hindi
/Punjabi
, and "khan" translates as "sovereign," "king" or "military leader" and so forth in a number of languages influenced by the Mongols, including Pashto. Shere Khan should be pronounced "Skere Khan" according to one of Rudyard Kipling's notes, however in movie adaptations his name has always been pronounced as it is written.
d Lungri (The Lame One) by his own mother, Shere Khan is arrogant and regards himself as the rightful lord of the jungle. It seems, however, that the only creature who looks up to him is Tabaqui, the cowardly, despised golden jackal
.
In "Mowgli's Brothers
", Shere Khan's failed attempt to hunt humans causes a human "cub" to stray from his parents. By the time Shere Khan catches up with the infant it has already been adopted by the Indian wolves
Raksha
and Father Wolf, who have named the child Mowgli
. Despite Shere Khan's bluster, Mowgli is accepted into Akela
's wolf pack and protected by Bagheera
and Baloo
. Furious at losing his kill, the tiger swears that the boy will be his some day.
Over the next decade, while Mowgli is growing up, Shere Khan infiltrates the wolf pack by promising the younger wolves rich rewards once Akela is deposed. His plan comes to a head when the young wolves maneuver Akela into missing his kill, and the pack council meets to expel him.
At the meeting Shere Khan threatens that if the wolves do not give him Mowgli he will take over their hunting territory. Having been warned by Bagheera, however, Mowgli attacks Shere Khan and his allies with a burning branch and drives them away. Akela leaves the pack to become a lone hunter. Mowgli returns to the human village, but swears that he will return one day with Shere Khan's skin.
In "Tiger! Tiger!
" Mowgli is adopted by Messua and her husband and learns human ways. He also learns that the villagers have heard of the lame tiger, which has a price on its head, but believe it is lame because it is the reincarnation
of a money-lender who was lamed in a riot. When Mowgli scoffs at these fanciful tales the villagers decide to put him to work herding buffalo to keep him out of trouble.
While he is doing so he meets his wolf friend Grey Brother, who tells him that Shere Khan is still planning to kill him. Grey Brother forces Tabaqui to tell him where and when Shere Khan is planning to strike, and then kills the jackal. With the help of Akela, Grey Brother and Mowgli trap Shere Khan in a narrow canyon and incite the buffalo to stampede him to death.
Mowgli then sets out to fulfil his promise by skinning Shere Khan, but while he is doing so he is interrupted by the village's elderly chief hunter Buldeo who wants the tiger's hide for the reward. Mowgli calls Akela, who pins Buldeo down while Mowgli finishes removing the hide.
Mowgli assumes that this will be an end of the matter, since in the jungle quarrels are usually settled quickly, but when he returns to the village with the hide and the buffalo the villagers drive him away, accusing him of witchcraft
. Furious at being driven out of not one but two 'packs', Mowgli leaves. That night he fulfils his pledge by laying Shere Khan's hide upon the wolf pack's council rock, and then dances upon the hide singing of his anger and confusion.
Thus Shere Khan's story comes to an end, but the consequences of Mowgli's actions in defeating him continue to affect Mowgli and his adoptive parents. In the story "Letting In the Jungle" in The Second Jungle Book
Mowgli discovers that the villagers are preparing to burn to death Messua and her husband for harbouring a witch-boy so Mowgli prepares to rescue them and take revenge on Buldeo and the villagers.
Shere Khan also appears in the story "How Fear Came," which is set between the first and second halves of "Mowgli's Brothers," and probably some time after "Kaa's Hunting
". In this story the tiger comes to drink from the river just after having killed a human purely for sport, prompting Hathi the Elephant to tell the story of why tigers, alone of all the animals in the jungle, are allowed to hunt humans for pleasure at certain times. This story, in which Mowgli appears mainly as an observer, may be seen as a direct ancestor of Kipling's Just So Stories
.
1967 animated adaptation of The Jungle Book
, Shere Khan is the main antagonist, entering the story about two-thirds of the way through. His seductive, purring voice
was supplied by the late George Sanders
. He was designed and animated by animator Milt Kahl
. Khan is not depicted as being lame—quite the contrary, he is powerful, deadly, and sophisticated. His mere presence in the jungle compels the wolf pack to send Mowgli away, since Shere Khan will kill him because he is human. That, and the fact that not even the entire wolf pack can protect Mowgli from him (as told by Akela). Man's gun and Man's fire are the only things Shere Khan fears. He avoids falling victim to Kaa
's hypnotic powers, though whether from experience, observation, or immunity is unclear.
In the climactic battle of the movie, Shere Khan finds Mowgli. Impressed by the boy standing up to him, Shere Khan, for his own amusement, gives him a ten second head-start to run-away. Once he reaches ten, Baloo
grabs his tail and holds him back. Shere Khan chases Mowgli, who is being carried away by the vultures, while dragging Baloo behind him. Baloo proves such an impediment to Khan that he decides to fight Baloo, nearly killing him, until the vultures arrive and distract him. Mowgli finds a burning branch from a lightning-struck tree and ties it to Khan's tail. When a vulture's comment prompts Khan to notice the branch, he attempts to put the fire out and then flees when he fails.
In the Disney sequel, The Jungle Book 2, Shere Khan returns to the jungle, humiliated and determined to kill Mowgli for tying stick with fire to his tail, this time as revenge. Nothing could stop the tiger; not even the fire as he had overcome his fear of it. During the conclusion of the final battle in an ancient temple surrounded by lava, Shere Khan falls into a pit of molten lava but lands on a stone slab, trapped underneath the head of a tiger statue. He is not killed, and is last seen being teased by Lucky (voiced by Phil Collins
), the new member of the Vultures who had been teasing him throughout the whole movie. His death is not shown or mentioned, but is obvious as he can not live without nutrition or water and is trapped in never ending heat. His death was also implied at the end of the film when Bagheera willingly allows Mowgli, Shanti, and Ranjan to come into the jungle and spend time with Baloo as he had been opposed to it when Khan was not trapped. He is now currently deceased in The Jungle Book films and is no longer a threat to Mowgli. In The Jungle Book 2, Khan was voiced by the late Tony Jay
, who reprised his role from the Disney Afternoon series Tale Spin.
Shere Khan was included in the cast of characters in the Disney Afternoon series Tale Spin, being cast as the richest corporate magnate in the harbor town of Cape Suzette. He was a nominal villain who occasionally allied with the heroes when it suited him—such as when he allowed Baloo to fly his plane after destroying the robotic pilot he had been using previously, as the pilot's A.I. lacked the ability to cope with unexpected occurrences during the flight. He was voiced by the late Tony Jay
, who provided a voice remarkably similar to George Sanders' rendition and who later voiced Disney villain Judge Frollo.
In the 1994 film, Shere Khan is presented as a more sympathetic character and anti-hero. Despite being a dangerous threat to Mowgli, Khan appears rarely and instead serves as a secondary antagonist of the film while an arrogant British captain named William Boone (who is played by Cary Elwes
) serves as the primary antagonist and villain of the film. Khan does not kill for sport, and his sole goal is to protect the jungle from those who break "the laws of the jungle", including humans who trespass with guns and kill animals for fun and not food. At the beginning of the movie, he sees numerous guards shooting animals for fun, and becomes enraged at this. That night, he attacks the humans' camp in revenge for the animals' death, and kills Mowgli's father, who was defending one of the hunters, in the process. Other than killing Mowgli's father in the process, Khan also kills a guard and a British sergeant named Claiborne. He is not seen again until the second half of the movie, where he mauls Lt. Wilkins, a henchman of Captain Boone. He also cause Wilkins to shoot one of his group's guides, Buldeo, by roaring. After the climactic battle between Mowgli and Boone, Khan and Mowgli meet face to face after a long time. Khan is obviously still distrusting of Mowgli (and all humans in general), and attempts to scare him away by roaring in his face, but Mowgli stubbornly roars back and stares Khan down. Khan develops a newfound respect for Mowgli, and begins to see him as a fellow "creature of the jungle".
Shere Khan also appeared as a main character in the Disney Channel series Jungle Cubs, where he was portrayed as a tiger cub, more a bully than a predator, but nonetheless friends with the other characters. In this show, Shere Khan is voiced by Jason Marsden
. The producers originally wanted Khan to keep his British accent for the show, but later changed their mind and Shere Khan ended up with an American accent, completely different from that of his adult version. The adult version of himself appears in the Jungle Cubs
: Born to be Wild video(again voiced by Tony Jay
), and in these cutscenes, he attempts to kill Mowgli when he (Mowgli), Baloo and Bagheera walk into his part of the jungle. Baloo and Bagheera try to reason with Khan by recounting the Red Dogs story, in which they and the other animals saved Khan's life, but Khan refuses to listen. Baloo then throws a stone at a beehive and grabs Khan by the head, letting go only when the beehive falls on his head. Khan, with the beehive still on his head, runs away from the angry bees.
Shere Khan appears once again as a villain in Jungle Book: Mowgli's Story
, where he is voiced by Sherman Howard
and accompanied by his sidekick Tabaqui, who in this version is a spotted hyena.
Fictional character
A character is the representation of a person in a narrative work of art . Derived from the ancient Greek word kharaktêr , the earliest use in English, in this sense, dates from the Restoration, although it became widely used after its appearance in Tom Jones in 1749. From this, the sense of...
tiger
Bengal Tiger
The Bengal tiger is a tiger subspecies native to the Indian subcontinent that in 2010 has been classified as endangered by IUCN...
of the India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
n jungle. He is the chief antagonist in two of Rudyard Kipling
Rudyard Kipling
Joseph Rudyard Kipling was an English poet, short-story writer, and novelist chiefly remembered for his celebration of British imperialism, tales and poems of British soldiers in India, and his tales for children. Kipling received the 1907 Nobel Prize for Literature...
's Jungle Book
The Jungle Book
The Jungle Book is a collection of stories by British Nobel laureate Rudyard Kipling. The stories were first published in magazines in 1893–4. The original publications contain illustrations, some by Rudyard's father, John Lockwood Kipling. Kipling was born in India and spent the first six...
stories featuring Mowgli
Mowgli
Mowgli is a fictional character from India who originally appeared in Rudyard Kipling's short story "In the Rukh" and then went on to become the most prominent and memorable character in his fantasies, The Jungle Book and The Second Jungle Book , which also featured stories about other...
. Shere Khan is named after an Afghan
Pashtun people
Pashtuns or Pathans , also known as ethnic Afghans , are an Eastern Iranic ethnic group with populations primarily between the Hindu Kush mountains in Afghanistan and the Indus River in Pakistan...
Prince (Sher Shah Suri
Sher Shah Suri
Sher Shah Suri , birth name Farid Khan, also known as Sher Khan , was the founder of the short-lived Sur Empire in northern India, with its capital at Delhi, before its demise in the hands of the resurgent Mughal Empire...
, The Tiger King, although it also translates to The Lion King) Kipling encountered on his trips to Afghanistan
Afghanistan
Afghanistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located in the centre of Asia, forming South Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East. With a population of about 29 million, it has an area of , making it the 42nd most populous and 41st largest nation in the world...
. The word Shere translates to "Tiger" in Urdu
Urdu
Urdu is a register of the Hindustani language that is identified with Muslims in South Asia. It belongs to the Indo-European family. Urdu is the national language and lingua franca of Pakistan. It is also widely spoken in some regions of India, where it is one of the 22 scheduled languages and an...
/Hindi
Hindi
Standard Hindi, or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi, also known as Manak Hindi , High Hindi, Nagari Hindi, and Literary Hindi, is a standardized and sanskritized register of the Hindustani language derived from the Khariboli dialect of Delhi...
/Punjabi
Punjabi language
Punjabi is an Indo-Aryan language spoken by inhabitants of the historical Punjab region . For Sikhs, the Punjabi language stands as the official language in which all ceremonies take place. In Pakistan, Punjabi is the most widely spoken language...
, and "khan" translates as "sovereign," "king" or "military leader" and so forth in a number of languages influenced by the Mongols, including Pashto. Shere Khan should be pronounced "Skere Khan" according to one of Rudyard Kipling's notes, however in movie adaptations his name has always been pronounced as it is written.
The original Jungle Book stories
Despite being born with a crippled leg and derisively nicknameNickname
A nickname is "a usually familiar or humorous but sometimes pointed or cruel name given to a person or place, as a supposedly appropriate replacement for or addition to the proper name.", or a name similar in origin and pronunciation from the original name....
d Lungri (The Lame One) by his own mother, Shere Khan is arrogant and regards himself as the rightful lord of the jungle. It seems, however, that the only creature who looks up to him is Tabaqui, the cowardly, despised golden jackal
Golden Jackal
The golden jackal , also known as the common jackal, Asiatic jackal, thos or gold-wolf is a Canid of the genus Canis indigenous to north and northeastern Africa, southeastern and central Europe , Asia Minor, the Middle East and southeast Asia...
.
In "Mowgli's Brothers
Mowgli's Brothers
"Mowgli's Brothers" is a short story by Rudyard Kipling. Chronologically it is the first story about Mowgli although it was written after "In the Rukh" in which Mowgli appears as an adult.The story first appeared in the January 1894 issue of St...
", Shere Khan's failed attempt to hunt humans causes a human "cub" to stray from his parents. By the time Shere Khan catches up with the infant it has already been adopted by the Indian wolves
Indian Wolf
Indian wolf and Iranian Wolf are two common names for Canis lupus pallipes, a subspecies of grey wolf which inhabits western India, Pakistan, Iran, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and southern Israel. Some experts have suggested at least some C. lupus pallipes populations be re-classified a canid species...
Raksha
Raksha (Jungle Books)
Raksha the Demon is a fictional character featured in Rudyard Kipling's Mowgli stories, collected in The Jungle Book and The Second Jungle Book...
and Father Wolf, who have named the child Mowgli
Mowgli
Mowgli is a fictional character from India who originally appeared in Rudyard Kipling's short story "In the Rukh" and then went on to become the most prominent and memorable character in his fantasies, The Jungle Book and The Second Jungle Book , which also featured stories about other...
. Despite Shere Khan's bluster, Mowgli is accepted into Akela
Akela (Jungle Book)
Akela is a character in Rudyard Kipling's stories, The Jungle Book and The Second Jungle Book. He is the leader of the Seeonee pack of Indian wolves and presides over the pack's council meetings...
's wolf pack and protected by Bagheera
Bagheera
Bagheera the black-toned Indian Leopard is an animal fictional character in Rudyard Kipling's Mowgli stories in The Jungle Book and The Second Jungle Book...
and Baloo
Baloo
Baloo is the fictional bear featured in Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book from 1894 and The Second Jungle Book from 1895.-Name and species:He is described in Kipling's work as "the sleepy brown bear"...
. Furious at losing his kill, the tiger swears that the boy will be his some day.
Over the next decade, while Mowgli is growing up, Shere Khan infiltrates the wolf pack by promising the younger wolves rich rewards once Akela is deposed. His plan comes to a head when the young wolves maneuver Akela into missing his kill, and the pack council meets to expel him.
At the meeting Shere Khan threatens that if the wolves do not give him Mowgli he will take over their hunting territory. Having been warned by Bagheera, however, Mowgli attacks Shere Khan and his allies with a burning branch and drives them away. Akela leaves the pack to become a lone hunter. Mowgli returns to the human village, but swears that he will return one day with Shere Khan's skin.
In "Tiger! Tiger!
Tiger! Tiger! (Rudyard Kipling)
"Tiger! Tiger!" is a short story by Rudyard Kipling. A direct sequel to "Mowgli's Brothers", it was published in magazines in 1893–94 before appearing as the third story in The Jungle Book , following "Kaa's Hunting"...
" Mowgli is adopted by Messua and her husband and learns human ways. He also learns that the villagers have heard of the lame tiger, which has a price on its head, but believe it is lame because it is the reincarnation
Reincarnation
Reincarnation best describes the concept where the soul or spirit, after the death of the body, is believed to return to live in a new human body, or, in some traditions, either as a human being, animal or plant...
of a money-lender who was lamed in a riot. When Mowgli scoffs at these fanciful tales the villagers decide to put him to work herding buffalo to keep him out of trouble.
While he is doing so he meets his wolf friend Grey Brother, who tells him that Shere Khan is still planning to kill him. Grey Brother forces Tabaqui to tell him where and when Shere Khan is planning to strike, and then kills the jackal. With the help of Akela, Grey Brother and Mowgli trap Shere Khan in a narrow canyon and incite the buffalo to stampede him to death.
Mowgli then sets out to fulfil his promise by skinning Shere Khan, but while he is doing so he is interrupted by the village's elderly chief hunter Buldeo who wants the tiger's hide for the reward. Mowgli calls Akela, who pins Buldeo down while Mowgli finishes removing the hide.
Mowgli assumes that this will be an end of the matter, since in the jungle quarrels are usually settled quickly, but when he returns to the village with the hide and the buffalo the villagers drive him away, accusing him of witchcraft
Witchcraft
Witchcraft, in historical, anthropological, religious, and mythological contexts, is the alleged use of supernatural or magical powers. A witch is a practitioner of witchcraft...
. Furious at being driven out of not one but two 'packs', Mowgli leaves. That night he fulfils his pledge by laying Shere Khan's hide upon the wolf pack's council rock, and then dances upon the hide singing of his anger and confusion.
Thus Shere Khan's story comes to an end, but the consequences of Mowgli's actions in defeating him continue to affect Mowgli and his adoptive parents. In the story "Letting In the Jungle" in The Second Jungle Book
The Second Jungle Book
The Second Jungle Book is a sequel to The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling. First published in 1895, it features five stories about Mowgli and three unrelated stories, all but one set in India, most of which Kipling wrote while living in Vermont...
Mowgli discovers that the villagers are preparing to burn to death Messua and her husband for harbouring a witch-boy so Mowgli prepares to rescue them and take revenge on Buldeo and the villagers.
Shere Khan also appears in the story "How Fear Came," which is set between the first and second halves of "Mowgli's Brothers," and probably some time after "Kaa's Hunting
Kaa's Hunting
"Kaa's Hunting" is an 1893 short story by Rudyard Kipling featuring Mowgli. Chronologically the story falls between the first and second halves of Mowgli's Brothers, and is the second story in The Jungle Book where it is accompanied by the poem "Road Song of the Bandar-log".-Story:The...
". In this story the tiger comes to drink from the river just after having killed a human purely for sport, prompting Hathi the Elephant to tell the story of why tigers, alone of all the animals in the jungle, are allowed to hunt humans for pleasure at certain times. This story, in which Mowgli appears mainly as an observer, may be seen as a direct ancestor of Kipling's Just So Stories
Just So Stories
The Just So Stories for Little Children were written by British author Rudyard Kipling. They are highly fantasised origin stories and are among Kipling's best known works.-Description:...
.
Disney version
In Disney'sThe Walt Disney Company
The Walt Disney Company is the largest media conglomerate in the world in terms of revenue. Founded on October 16, 1923, by Walt and Roy Disney as the Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio, Walt Disney Productions established itself as a leader in the American animation industry before diversifying into...
1967 animated adaptation of The Jungle Book
The Jungle Book (1967 film)
The Jungle Book is a 1967 American animated film produced by Walt Disney Animation Studios. Released on October 18, 1967, it is the 19th animated feature in the Walt Disney Animated Classics series. It was inspired by the stories about the feral child Mowgli from the book of the same name by...
, Shere Khan is the main antagonist, entering the story about two-thirds of the way through. His seductive, purring voice
Voice acting
Voice acting is the art of providing voices for animated characters and radio and audio dramas and comedy, as well as doing voice-overs in radio and television commercials, audio dramas, dubbed foreign language films, video games, puppet shows, and amusement rides.Performers are called...
was supplied by the late George Sanders
George Sanders
George Sanders was a British actor.George Sanders may also refer to:*George Sanders , Victoria Cross recipient in World War I...
. He was designed and animated by animator Milt Kahl
Milt Kahl
Milton Erwin Kahl was an animator for the Disney studio, and one of Disney's Nine Old Men....
. Khan is not depicted as being lame—quite the contrary, he is powerful, deadly, and sophisticated. His mere presence in the jungle compels the wolf pack to send Mowgli away, since Shere Khan will kill him because he is human. That, and the fact that not even the entire wolf pack can protect Mowgli from him (as told by Akela). Man's gun and Man's fire are the only things Shere Khan fears. He avoids falling victim to Kaa
Kaa
Kaa is a fictional and exceptionally long Python molurus from the Mowgli stories written by Rudyard Kipling. Kaa is one of Mowgli's mentors and friends. He, Baloo and Bagheera sing for Mowgli "The Outsong" of the jungle. First introduced in the story "Kaa's Hunting" in The Jungle Book, Kaa is a...
's hypnotic powers, though whether from experience, observation, or immunity is unclear.
In the climactic battle of the movie, Shere Khan finds Mowgli. Impressed by the boy standing up to him, Shere Khan, for his own amusement, gives him a ten second head-start to run-away. Once he reaches ten, Baloo
Baloo
Baloo is the fictional bear featured in Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book from 1894 and The Second Jungle Book from 1895.-Name and species:He is described in Kipling's work as "the sleepy brown bear"...
grabs his tail and holds him back. Shere Khan chases Mowgli, who is being carried away by the vultures, while dragging Baloo behind him. Baloo proves such an impediment to Khan that he decides to fight Baloo, nearly killing him, until the vultures arrive and distract him. Mowgli finds a burning branch from a lightning-struck tree and ties it to Khan's tail. When a vulture's comment prompts Khan to notice the branch, he attempts to put the fire out and then flees when he fails.
In the Disney sequel, The Jungle Book 2, Shere Khan returns to the jungle, humiliated and determined to kill Mowgli for tying stick with fire to his tail, this time as revenge. Nothing could stop the tiger; not even the fire as he had overcome his fear of it. During the conclusion of the final battle in an ancient temple surrounded by lava, Shere Khan falls into a pit of molten lava but lands on a stone slab, trapped underneath the head of a tiger statue. He is not killed, and is last seen being teased by Lucky (voiced by Phil Collins
Phil Collins
Philip David Charles "Phil" Collins, LVO is an English singer-songwriter, drummer, pianist and actor best known as a drummer and vocalist for British progressive rock group Genesis and as a solo artist....
), the new member of the Vultures who had been teasing him throughout the whole movie. His death is not shown or mentioned, but is obvious as he can not live without nutrition or water and is trapped in never ending heat. His death was also implied at the end of the film when Bagheera willingly allows Mowgli, Shanti, and Ranjan to come into the jungle and spend time with Baloo as he had been opposed to it when Khan was not trapped. He is now currently deceased in The Jungle Book films and is no longer a threat to Mowgli. In The Jungle Book 2, Khan was voiced by the late Tony Jay
Tony Jay
Tony Jay was an English actor, voice actor and singer. A former member of the Royal Shakespeare Company, he was known for his voice work in animation, film and computer games. Jay's distinctive baritone voice often landed him villainous roles...
, who reprised his role from the Disney Afternoon series Tale Spin.
Shere Khan was included in the cast of characters in the Disney Afternoon series Tale Spin, being cast as the richest corporate magnate in the harbor town of Cape Suzette. He was a nominal villain who occasionally allied with the heroes when it suited him—such as when he allowed Baloo to fly his plane after destroying the robotic pilot he had been using previously, as the pilot's A.I. lacked the ability to cope with unexpected occurrences during the flight. He was voiced by the late Tony Jay
Tony Jay
Tony Jay was an English actor, voice actor and singer. A former member of the Royal Shakespeare Company, he was known for his voice work in animation, film and computer games. Jay's distinctive baritone voice often landed him villainous roles...
, who provided a voice remarkably similar to George Sanders' rendition and who later voiced Disney villain Judge Frollo.
In the 1994 film, Shere Khan is presented as a more sympathetic character and anti-hero. Despite being a dangerous threat to Mowgli, Khan appears rarely and instead serves as a secondary antagonist of the film while an arrogant British captain named William Boone (who is played by Cary Elwes
Cary Elwes
Ivan Simon Cary Elwes , known professionally as Cary Elwes, is an English actor. The son of Dominick Elwes and Tessa Georgina Kennedy, Elwes acted in off-Broadway plays during college and moved to the United States in the early 1980s. He is known for his role as Westley in the cult classic The...
) serves as the primary antagonist and villain of the film. Khan does not kill for sport, and his sole goal is to protect the jungle from those who break "the laws of the jungle", including humans who trespass with guns and kill animals for fun and not food. At the beginning of the movie, he sees numerous guards shooting animals for fun, and becomes enraged at this. That night, he attacks the humans' camp in revenge for the animals' death, and kills Mowgli's father, who was defending one of the hunters, in the process. Other than killing Mowgli's father in the process, Khan also kills a guard and a British sergeant named Claiborne. He is not seen again until the second half of the movie, where he mauls Lt. Wilkins, a henchman of Captain Boone. He also cause Wilkins to shoot one of his group's guides, Buldeo, by roaring. After the climactic battle between Mowgli and Boone, Khan and Mowgli meet face to face after a long time. Khan is obviously still distrusting of Mowgli (and all humans in general), and attempts to scare him away by roaring in his face, but Mowgli stubbornly roars back and stares Khan down. Khan develops a newfound respect for Mowgli, and begins to see him as a fellow "creature of the jungle".
Shere Khan also appeared as a main character in the Disney Channel series Jungle Cubs, where he was portrayed as a tiger cub, more a bully than a predator, but nonetheless friends with the other characters. In this show, Shere Khan is voiced by Jason Marsden
Jason Marsden
Jason Christopher Marsden is an American screen and voice actor who has done numerous voice roles in animated films, as well as various television series.-Early life:...
. The producers originally wanted Khan to keep his British accent for the show, but later changed their mind and Shere Khan ended up with an American accent, completely different from that of his adult version. The adult version of himself appears in the Jungle Cubs
Jungle Cubs
Jungle Cubs is an animated series produced by Disney for ABC in 1996. It was based on their 1967 feature film The Jungle Book, but set in the youth of the animal characters. The show was a hit, running for two seasons in syndication before moving its re-runs to the Disney Channel...
: Born to be Wild video(again voiced by Tony Jay
Tony Jay
Tony Jay was an English actor, voice actor and singer. A former member of the Royal Shakespeare Company, he was known for his voice work in animation, film and computer games. Jay's distinctive baritone voice often landed him villainous roles...
), and in these cutscenes, he attempts to kill Mowgli when he (Mowgli), Baloo and Bagheera walk into his part of the jungle. Baloo and Bagheera try to reason with Khan by recounting the Red Dogs story, in which they and the other animals saved Khan's life, but Khan refuses to listen. Baloo then throws a stone at a beehive and grabs Khan by the head, letting go only when the beehive falls on his head. Khan, with the beehive still on his head, runs away from the angry bees.
Shere Khan appears once again as a villain in Jungle Book: Mowgli's Story
Jungle Book: Mowgli's Story
The Jungle Book: Mowgli's Story is a direct-to-video release from Walt Disney Home Entertainment. The film follows the adventures of Mowgli from the time he was 5 living among humans to when he was 12 and rediscovering humans again.-Plot:Mowgli's village is attacked by Shere Khan the tiger and he...
, where he is voiced by Sherman Howard
Sherman Howard
Howard Lee Sherman is an American actor.-Theatre:In 1989 he appeared at the Kentucky Shakespeare Festival in Louisville, Kentucky. He played the title role in Hamlet and Malvolio in Twelfth Night...
and accompanied by his sidekick Tabaqui, who in this version is a spotted hyena.