Que Rei Sou Eu?

"What Kinda King Am I?" mixes The Prince and the Pauper with The Prisoner of Zenda to tell the story of the Avilan country, plagued by an absolutist, degenerate tyranny. As pop-star Abel Chacrinha used to state, within the television community, nothing is created, whilst everything is copied. The phrase continues to ring a bell and adhere to almost everything done by TV Globo along the last quarter century, including this satire against (ugh)... Corruption. (By the way, the latter phenomenon, incidentally, seems to have grown 5000 percent in this quarter century alone) (and nowadays Avilan is even more corrupt than, say, rotten Denmark used to be in more princely times.)

The scenarios, names and everything else were of a fictitious European kingdom named Avilan. But anyone could see that it was a satire of modern day (at the time) Brazil, with a layer or two of Alexander Dumas' world. While it gave a social/political criticism in-between the burlesque plot there was also space for romance, comedy, action, suspense, a bit of drama and many more. The basis of the story was the plot made by the newly widowed queen and the leaders of the nobles when they learn that the deceased King had a son outside the marriage. They choose a beggar to replace the unknown heir and teach him how to be a King, while the real heir of the throne is completely unaware of his heritage of course, after all being the leader of an anti-nobility group takes too much of his time... And kidnappings, betrayals, wrongful imprisonments, assassinations attempts... follows one after another and another. To try to summarize the whole action between the first five chapters and the last five ones would be really hard to do! The kind of soap-opera that sadly isn't produced anymore...

"Que Rei sou eu?" (What King am I?) was a big hit of TV in 1989. A lot of people miss it a lot. The plot is full of action, movement, comedy and a bit of romance. The crew is very efficient, with memorable roles and quotes. It is about a fictional - with some ironic brazilian-related details - kingdom of 17th/19th century ( it not easy to define a period, but it is not important)The partnership of Cassiano Gabus Mendes as writer and Jorge Fernando as director in one of their most creative pieces.