Forgotten Villains; Highlander’s Kurgan

By Owen Quinn author of the Time Warriors and Zombie Blues

I was recently made aware of just how many movies and television shows the younger generation have never heard of, never mind seen. So to that end, we look back at some characters you really need to see before you kick the bucket.

Photos copyright 20th Century Fox and Columbia Cannon Warner

Most villains end up showing some degree of compassion or become good guys when they see the error of their ways like Vader. But there are the ones that are just pure bastards that will walk over nuns and children to their very last breath just so they get their own way. One such example is the hulking Kurgan from the first Highlander movie back in 1986.

You know the one; where Sean Connery is an Egyptian Spanish immortal that speaks in a Scottish accent. Before you ridicule, it’s Sean Bloody Connery; he can do what he wants (plus a certain Jean Luc Picard should be as French as frog legs and croissants but is more Downton Abbey…but I digress).

The Kurgan is one of the immortals destined to fight other immortals to behead them and absorb their power. The thing is, you don’t know you’re immortal until someone kills you. So imagine a bloodthirsty power-house, that cares for no-one or nothing but his own selfish needs, suddenly discovering he is immortal. In order to claim the ultimate prize, each time you behead a fellow immortal, their essence is released. It takes the form of a white storm and you’re lifted into the air as lightning wracks your body. No matter what the time period, the Kurgan manages to revel in the dark side of society waiting for the day he can face Connor MacLeod (Christopher Lambert), take his head and be granted the Prize at the Gathering. In the end, as they say, there can be only one and the Kurgan fully intends to be that One. The Kurgan has no name but comes from an ancient tribe from Russia; a tribe so vile and horrible they threw children into pits of starving dogs just for sport. He is a savage that is the perfect warrior and the strongest of all the immortals. He would, in the 20th century, take the name Victor Kruger and be equally as unfriendly as Freddy.

Clancy Brown is a great actor and an imposing presence and as a kid, his sheer raw hatred and desire to be the One knew no bounds. He would stop at nothing to achieve it and his yellow brick road is soaked with the blood of hundreds if not thousands of slaughtered bodies, including ordinary people, which he now sees as pawns to be used in his games.

We first meet him in the year 1536 when the clan MacLeod go into battle against the clan Frazer, the Kurgan in their ranks. He reminds the clan leader Murdoch to remember their bargain and that Connor MacLeod is his. The Kurgan is on his horse, his head bowed slightly wearing a fanged animal skull as a battle helmet. Clancy Brown’s distinctive face is perfect adorned by that animal skull and in full armour wielding his sword. Now it is not known what sort of animal it is but it is a type of sabre toothed creature which is extinct. This may be an indication of just how long Kurgan has been around. Immortal hunting takes decades as they hide themselves well and you’re not exactly tripping over them in the street. Add to that they are global so it’s not an easy kill. People like Murdoch Frazer are a lower species to the Kurgan, a disposable means to an end. As MacLeod has yet to discover that he is immortal, the Kurgan has him in his sights. Every other MacLeod can fall but he wants Connor for himself. Just as well immortals are sterile; one Kurgan is bad enough.

Confused as to why none of the Frazers will battle him, Connor soon finds out why when the Kurgan rears over him as lightning splits the sky. Such a nightmarish figure is he that the Kurgan takes advantage at the frozen Connor and stabs him through the side. We have just seen the Kurgan gallop over men killing them as he goes in order to get to Connor so wounding him to bring him to his knees is a nice tease for the audience. As Kurgan raises his sword and cries ‘there can be only one’, Connor’s cousins drag the Kurgan away while he yells “another time MacLeod.”

One what? Why didn’t the Kurgan just lop Connor’s head off there and then? A great example of show not tell. Somehow the Kurgan knew about Connor and when he discovers later that Ramirez has trained Connor to defeat him then his focus is multiplied. Connor is the only one that can possibly stop him but the question remains, how did the Kurgan know that? When they meet again, the Kurgan has assimilated into the eighties (or present day to those of us who were alive back then). He is still hunting immortals and goes by the name Victor Kruger. He has slicked back black hair and prefers leather jackets like a goth type figure. He also likes his Queen, who sing of winning the prize and being the one. What a coincidence (thanks Queen, best soundtrack ever). MacLeod is now called Nash, an antique dealer.

MacLeod is still very much on his radar and there are literally a handful of immortals left. The Gathering is fast approaching. New York will be their final battle and only the arrival of the police stops the Kurgan almost killing Connor. No matter what; Connor must not allow the Kurgan to take the Prize.

The Kurgan’s tactical stabbing of Connor and his subsequent rise from the dead ends with Connor being banished from his clan. He lives in the wilds with his wife Heather but the story of the man who rose from the dead and exiled to the wilderness allows both Ramirez and the Kurgan to track Connor down. This is a valuable lesson that highlights the difference between both men. Refusing to leave Heather so she can meet someone and have children, Connor is devastated when he outlives her. He loves her with all his heart but a good woman like that is a plaything to the Kurgan; a mere vehicle to release his base desires upon, torture and mutilate. In literally ten minutes, the Kurgan decapitates Ramirez, destroys Connor’s home and rapes Heather. His power and appetite for destruction knows no bounds. It is symbolic of his effect on Connor’s life. As long as the Kurgan exists Connor can have nothing. We get a taste of the destruction the Kurgan will bring when a crowd witness him impaling a man on his sword, consumed the essence of the fallen immortal then steals a car with an old woman in it. he calls her mom and speeds off where she ends on clinging to the bonnet her husband more worried about his car than her.

Whatever it takes to pass the centuries. Connor realises that with the loss of both Ramirez and his wife, that he cannot be with anyone again. He must lead a solitary life, adapting to the times until the Gathering happens wandering and adopting Ramirez’s katana. Everything he wanted he can never have, leaving him alone to ponder the millennia of darkness that will fall if the Kurgan wins.

On a side note, the entire sequence of Connor and Heather’s life together played against the Queen song ‘Who Wants to Live Forever’ breaks my heart every time. Seeing heather grow old, can it be that Connor is the most selfish of them all for not giving his beloved up so she could have a family. When she says she wanted to have his children, it is clear she blames herself when in fact the fault lies with him. Excuse me a moment folks, things got a little blurry there as I watch it to write this piece. Gets me every time.

It says a lot for the menace of the Kurgan when you spend centuries looking over your shoulder for that face or that telltale glint of a sword in the moonlight. In the end they will all be drawn to New York for the final battle.

Like Eddie Hall going up against the Mountain, the Kurgan is not adverse to using mind games to shake Connor. On Heather’s birthday, Connor keeps his promise of lighting a candle for her when the Kurgan tracks him down. The House of God seems an ironic setting for these two given God is not even on the Kurgan’s radar. He mocks the nuns, wishing them a happy Halloween and puts out the candles the devout have lit for the dead. Even the priest is not immune to his taunting’s about God and totally disrupts the cathedral. He has shaved his head as a disguise. But together with his stitched throat scars, he looks more like Frankenstein’s monster (which everyone refers to as Frankenstein anyway). There is a look of Hellraiser about him like this. Now they are the final two.

If Connor ever needed a final spark to push him to beat the Devil, it is when he discovers Kurgan raped Heather thinking it was Ramirez’s woman. She never mentioned it to Connor and kept it secret until she died. On this night it will be the spirits of Heather and Ramirez that truly defeat the Kurgan.

But ever mindful of a tactical advantage , the Kurgan kidnaps Brenda Wyatt whom Connor has developed a relationship with. He terrifies her by playing chicken on the city streets and running innocent people down before playing Brenda’s terrified screams over the phone to him.

Their final fight is in the Silvercup studios. It is brutal, violent and literally destroys the place including a water tower that floods the room. Connor uses all of Ramirez’s training to slice away at the Kurgan who, even when the final blow comes and his head comes off, is laughing.

There is a something about the Kurgan that sparks imaginings of dark magic and sorcery making the audience’s imaginations run wild. In the novelisation it reveals that he first died in 970 BC. He was murdered by his father who smashed his head in with a rock and upon returning to life, murdered him in return by making him swallow a hot rock. He then fled to join bandits to avoid punishment and met the Bedouin. He would teach the young Kurgan all about the Gathering but presumably was beheaded at some point. After that and perhaps because his own father killed him, the Kurgan became a ruthless warrior battling alongside the Mongol hordes, the Vikings and Visigoths to name but a few. No-one would ever do that to him again and when you immerse yourself in such violence then it becomes your very nature. Or it could be said that becoming the ultimate warrior in those battles then you will be the One.

They wanted Clancy back for the sequel Highlander 2: The Quickening but on seeing the script and the money said no. The Kurgan would be mentioned in the Highlander television show but the four-part comic book series Highlander: Way of the Sword delves much deeper into the Kurgan. The meetings with Connor we see in the movie were not the only ones that happened.

There are many villains on and off screen but few that leave an impact not only on big screen history but on pop culture as a whole. Whenever I see Clancy Brown now in anything, I always picture the Kurgan, a monster not born out of devil worship but the darkest recesses of man himself and what he is capable of in the quest for power.