The Power of One

The Power of One is a 1992 drama film directed and edited by John G. Avildsen, loosely based on Bryce Courtenay's 1989 novel of the same title. The film stars Stephen Dorff, John Gielgud, Morgan Freeman, Armin Mueller-Stahl, and Daniel Craig in his feature film debut. Set in South Africa during World War II and the years immediately afterwards, the film centers on the life of Peter "PK" Keith, an English South African boy raised under apartheid, and his conflicted relationships with a German pianist, a Coloured boxing coach and an Afrikaner romantic interest. Plot Born in 1930 to a recently widowed Englishwoman on a homestead in South Africa, young 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 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. Their extreme bullying, which includes spitting in PK's face and urinating on him, 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.