The Kite Runner (2007) on Netflix
In 1978 Kabul, Amir Qadiri grows up with Hassan, the son of his father's servant. A call from Rahim Khan sends Amir back to Afghanistan to find Hassan's son.
- Netflix3.9/5
- IMDb7.5/1085,592 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes65%
Trailer
Plot summary
In 2000, Amir Qadiri, an Afghan writer living in San Francisco with his wife Soraya, gets a phone call from Rahim Khan, an old friend of his father, who is in Peshawar. The story goes back to Kabul in 1978, where Amir is ten years old and his father, a wealthy Pashtun man he calls Baba, raises him. Amir's closest friend is Hassan, the son of Baba's servant Ali, a Hazara. Hassan holds the spool in kite fights and can tell where a cut kite will land; with a slingshot he is a sure shot. Baba wishes Hassan were his own son and regards Amir as weak. Assef, an older boy who bullies them, is always faced down by Hassan. Amir writes stories and gets encouragement from Rahim Khan.
Cast
- Zekeria Ebrahimias Young Amir
- Ali Danish Bakhty Arias Sohrab
- Nabi Tanhaas Ali
- Bahram Ehsasas Wali
Show all 19 cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The Kite Runner (2007)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Paramount relocated the two child actors, along with M. Ali Danish Bakhtyari and another child actor with a minor role, to the United Arab Emirates, reportedly accepting responsibility for the boys' living expenses until adulthood at a cost some estimated at up to $500,000.
- The Afghan government under President Hamid Karzai banned the film from theaters and DVD shops; a deputy information and culture minister said it "showed the ethnic groups of Afghanistan in a bad light" and would be humiliating for one of them.
- After threats on his life, Ebrahimi stayed indoors and was home-schooled, later saying he wished he'd never done the film; Mahmoodzada, targeted by both Hazara and Pashtun communities, eventually used human smugglers to reach Sweden, living by 2017 in Borlänge.
- Because filming in Afghanistan was too dangerous, most of the Afghanistan-set scenes were actually shot in Kashgar, a city in China's Xinjiang region about 500 miles from Kabul that shares a similar look.
- Child actors Zekeria Ebrahimi and Ahmad Khan Mahmoodzada were initially paid just $17,500 each and Ali Danish Bakhtyari $13,700, and critics later argued the boys had been underpaid for the film.
- Child actor Ahmad Khan Mahmoodzada, who played young Hassan, said before release that filming a difficult scene upset him because he feared his friends would think it really happened to him, worrying "I won't be able to go outside any more."
- Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times rated the film among the year's very best, naming The Kite Runner the fifth-best film of 2007.
