‘One Night with the King’ distorts history: Iranian historian

An Iranian historian says the movie ‘One Night with the King’ attempts to manipulate the history.

Famed historian Khosrow Motazed slams the fake content of the American movie, criticizing the filmmaker for fabricating a dishonest story.

In a series of shows titled ‘Cinema VS History’, hosted by ifilm, the Iranian historian sheds light on the reality behind a number of anti-Iran films produced by Hollywood.

In this episode, the historian explains the fake story of ‘One Night with the King’ directed by Michael O. Sajbel.

Motazed also said both the filmmaker and the picture companies behind it have rendered a falsified story of what has been mentioned about Xerxes, the fifth king of the Achaemenid dynasty.

‘One Night with the King’ is a 2006 American film produced by Matt Crouch and Laurie Crouch of Gener8Xion Entertainment, starring Peter O'Toole, Tiffany Dupont, John Rhys-Davies and Luke Goss.

The screenplay by Stephan Blinn is based on Tommy Tenney and Mark Andrew Olsen's novel ‘Hadassah: One Night with the King’ and Nathaniel Weinreb's novel ‘Esther’.

In fact, ‘One Night with the King’ is an untruthful dramatization of the Biblical story of Esther risking her life by approaching the King of Persia to make a request.

Despite being a critical and commercial failure, it received a 2007 CAMIE Award for Goss' portrayal of King Xerxes, which seems more like a political award rather than an artistic one.

MG/AG