Shere Khan () is a fictional Bengal tiger featured in the Mowgli stories of Rudyard Kipling's Jungle Book. He is often portrayed as the main antagonist in the book's media adaptations, itself an exaggeration of his role in the original stories, in which he only appears a third of the time. Shere Khan is named after Afghan Emperor Sher Shah Suri. Khan is a title of distinction among the Turco-Mongol peoples, usually meaning chief or ruler. According to The Kipling Society, the name shows that Shere Khan "is the chief among tigers".
The character was born with a birth defect, a crippled leg, so his mother gave him the derisive nickname "Lungri" ("The Lame One"). Despite this condition, Shere Khan is prideful and regards himself as the "rightful" lord of the jungle.
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The original Jungle Book stories
Shere Khan is depicted by Kipling as having been born with a crippled leg, so his mother gave him the derisive nickname "Lungri" ("The Lame One"). Despite this condition, Shere Khan is prideful and regards himself as the "rightful" lord of the jungle. The only creature who looks up to him is Tabaqui, a spineless and hated golden jackal.
In "Mowgli's Brothers", Shere Khan's failed attempt to hunt humans causes a human "cub" to stray from its parents. When Shere Khan discovers the infant, it has been adopted by Indian wolves, Raksha and Father Wolf, who have named the child Mowgli. Mowgli is accepted into Akela's wolf pack and is protected by Bagheera (a panther) and Baloo (a bear). Furious at losing his kill, the tiger swears that the boy will be his some day. While Mowgli is growing up, Shere Khan infiltrates the wolf pack by promising the younger wolves rich rewards once Akela is deposed. When the young wolves manoeuvre Akela into missing his kill, the pack council meets to kill and replace him. Shere Khan threatens to take over their hunting territory if the wolves do not give him Mowgli. Having been warned by Bagheera, Mowgli attacks Shere Khan and his allies with a burning branch (the mysterious and powerful "red flower" of man) and drives them away. Akela leaves the pack to become a lone hunter. Mowgli goes to the human village but swears that he will return one day with Shere Khan's skin and lay it upon Council Rock.
Shere Khan also appears in the story "How Fear Came", which is set between the first and second halves of the "Mowgli's Brothers", and probably sometime after "Kaa's Hunting". In this story, the tiger comes to drink from the river just after having killed a human purely for sport, leading Hathi the elephant to tell the story of why tigers, out of all the animals in the jungle, are allowed to hunt humans for pleasure at certain times. This story, in which Mowgli appears mainly as an observer, may be seen as a direct ancestor of Kipling's Just So Stories.
In "Tiger! Tiger!", Mowgli is adopted by Messua and her husband and learns human ways. In this short story, Mowgli learns that the villagers have heard of the tiger Shere Khan, who also has a bounty on his head, but believe that the tiger is lame because he is the reincarnation of a money-lender injured in a riot. When Mowgli scoffs at these fanciful tales, the villagers decide to put him to work herding buffalo. He then meets his wolf friend Grey Brother, who tells him that Shere Khan is still planning to kill him. Grey Brother forces Tabaqui to tell him where and when Shere Khan is planning to strike, then kills the jackal. With the help of Akela, Grey Brother and Mowgli trap Shere Khan in a narrow canyon and incite the buffalo to stampede him to death. Mowgli then skins Shere Khan's hide, briefly interrupted by the arrival of the village hunter Buldeo, who tries to take the tiger's skin for himself only to be driven off by Akela. At the end of the story, Mowgli makes good on his promise and lays the skin of Shere Khan upon the Council Rock and dances upon it in victory before the wolves.
In adaptations and other media
Disney versions
In Disney's 1967 animated adaptation of The Jungle Book, Shere Khan's voice was performed by George Sanders, while his singing voice was provided by Bill Lee and Thurl Ravenscroft and his roars were performed by Jimmy MacDonald. He was designed and animated by animator Milt Kahl. This version of the character depicts him without the crippled leg he had in the source material. The inhabitants of the jungle fear him greatly; mere news of his being in the vicinity compels the wolf pack to send Mowgli away. Man's gun and fire are the only things Shere Khan fears, and consequently, he feels the urge to kill humans whenever the opportunity presents itself. Shere Khan first appears about two-thirds of the way through the film where, after having been interrupted during a hunt by Colonel Hathi, he eavesdrops on Bagheera asking the elephants to help search for a now-lost Mowgli and sets out to find and kill the boy. He later encounters Kaa just as he was going to eat Mowgli, but the snake denies any knowledge of the man-cub. Doubting Kaa's honesty, Shere Khan threatens Kaa into showing his middle by loosening his coils, inadvertently allowing Mowgli to escape after which the tiger resumes his search.
In the climax, Shere Khan finds Mowgli, who refuses to run and instead stands up against the tiger, saying that he is not afraid. Impressed by Mowgli's bravery, Shere Khan, for his own amusement, gives him a 10-second head start to run away. But Mowgli still refuses and grabs a stick, intent on fighting the tiger. Shere Khan becomes annoyed and immediately attempts to attack Mowgli, who flinches in fear, finally understanding the true danger of the ferocious beast. Fortunately, Baloo arrives in the nick of time and grabs Shere Khan by the tail. Mowgli then hits Shere Khan with his stick. Enraged, he chases Mowgli while dragging Baloo behind him, but the vultures manage to fly Mowgli to safety. Baloo's interference proves such a nuisance to Shere Khan that he decides to savage the bear, nearly killing him. Upon learning that Shere Khan is afraid of fire, Mowgli grabs a burning branch from a tree struck by a bolt of lightning, and the vultures distract Shere Khan long enough for Mowgli to tie the branch to his tail. Seeing the fire, Shere Khan panics and is forced to flee with the branch burning his back.
Shere Khan returned (and had more on-screen time) in The Jungle Book 2. Humiliated by the ordeal of his tail being tied to a burning branch in the original film, the tiger has sworn to kill Mowgli for revenge. He first searches the Man Village and is chased off by the villagers. He then searches the jungle for Mowgli and is lied to by Kaa, who tells him that Mowgli is at the swamp out of fear, and being pestered by Lucky, a new but dim-witted member of the vultures, who accidentally reveals Mowgli's whereabouts before Shere Khan violently attacks him for his jokes, causing the other 4 vultures to fly away in fear. Shere Khan and Mowgli ultimately meet again as Mowgli tries to reconcile with Shanti and Ranjan, who, unbeknownst to him, were cornered by the tiger at that very moment. Barely escaping, Mowgli hides in an abandoned temple surrounded by lava. Shanti, Ranjan, Baloo, and Bagheera hurry to save Mowgli. After Baloo and Shanti team up, they, along with Mowgli, confuse Shere Khan by banging three different gongs. Eventually, Shanti's gong collapses, giving away her hiding place. Shere Khan threatens to kill Shanti instead unless Mowgli comes out of hiding, forcing Mowgli to reveal himself. Shere Khan then chases the two of them, despite Baloo's efforts to slow him down. Mowgli and Shanti jump over a pit of molten lava and grab onto the head of a tiger statue. Shere Khan leaps across and corners the children. Before he can kill them, the statue falls under his weight taking the three of them with it. Shanti and Mowgli are saved by Baloo while Shere Khan falls onto a stone slab in the lava pit, and the statue lands on top of him, trapping him inside its mouth. He is last seen being taunted by Lucky. In The Jungle Book 2, Shere Khan was voiced by Tony Jay, who reprised his role from the Disney Afternoon series TaleSpin.
Mowgli: Legend of the Jungle (2018)
In the 2018 live-action film Mowgli: Legend of the Jungle, Shere Khan is portrayed in motion-capture and voice-over by Benedict Cumberbatch. This version of Shere Khan bears a closer resemblance to his novel counterpart in that he is crippled with a deformed front leg. He is also considerably more sinister than previous incarnations as he continually strives to gain more power and influence among the jungle's creatures as he seeks to kill Mowgli. Shere Khan first appears in the beginning of the film breaking jungle law by killing Mowgli's parents. When the infant Mowgli escapes him thanks to the intervention of Bagheera and the wolf pack, Shere Khan is informed of his whereabouts by his hyena minion Tabaqui and challenges Akela for him. When this fails, Shere Khan leaves for many years until he announces his return by killing man's cattle and leaving it for Baloo and the pack to find. He also pursues Mowgli during the latter's swim and subsequent escape, but fails to catch him after Mowgli falls into a tiger pit and an elephant rescues him. Shere Khan next appears when the Bandar-Log monkeys bring Mowgli to him on Tabaqui's orders, where he tries to eat Mowgli while the boy has been knocked unconscious. The intervention of Baloo, Bagheera and Kaa stops Shere Khan, and he waits until Akela is challenged for leadership to try to claim the boy again after Akela fails to catch a deer, but Mowgli drives him away with a burning branch taken from the Man-Village. Afterwards, Shere Khan divides the wolf pack with his followers haranguing and raiding Akela's pack and their allies. Mowgli, having lived in the Man-Village and seeking to rid the jungle of the tiger's influence, calls out Shere Khan. The boy then faces off against the tiger, aided by the elephants before he manages to mortally wound Shere Khan. However, the hunter pursuing Shere Khan, John Lockwood, accidentally grazes Mowgli with a bullet and shoots Akela as he stops the tiger from killing Mowgli causing the elephant whose tusk was shot off by Lockwood to intervene and kill the hunter to prevent more death. As the other animals rally to Mowgli, Shere Khan slinks away and collapses, playing dead to try to lure Mowgli in. Mowgli fails to let his guard down and kills Shere Khan with his knife as the tiger tries to kill him, ending his reign of terror once and for all.
Other appearances
Shere Khan appeared in the 1942 film adaptation by the Hungarian brothers, Zoltan and Alexander Korda, with the screenplay written by Laurence Stallings.
In the 1967 Russian animated short series Adventures of Mowgli, Shere Khan is voiced by Anatoli Papanov in Russian and by Scott McNeil in the English-language version.
In the 1976 animated television adaptation of "Mowgli's Brothers", all the male characters, including Shere Khan, are voiced by narrator Roddy McDowall. In this adaptation he is a robust white tiger.
In the 1989 Japanese anime television series Jungle Book Shōnen Mowgli, Shere Khan is voiced by Shigezō Sasaoka in Japanese, Jean Fontaine in the English dub, and Nana Patekar in the Hindi dub. Unlike in the literature, his crippled right leg wasn't a birth defect, but gained in a fight with the wolf Alexander, who was fathering Mowgli. He is very accurate to Kipling's portrayal in a lot of ways (like the fact that he has Tabaqui as a sidekick), only more cruel as he has violated many jungle laws (which includes man-eating) and also shares his Disney version's fear of fire.
A song titled "Shere Kahn" appears on the 1997 debut album Music for Earthworms by underground rapper Aesop Rock.
In the Spanish animated television series The Triplets, Shere Khan appears in the episode "The Triplets and The Jungle Book". Unlike other versions, Shere Khan is shown as a good character, acting as Mowgli's protector just as the panther Bagheera and the bear Baloo do in most adaptations. He joins the triplets in finding Mowgli, who has been kidnapped by a hunter who is looking for the treasure of Monkey Town.
In the 2010 Indian animated television series The Jungle Book, Shere Khan is voiced by David Holt in Seasons 1 and 2 and Marc Thompson in Season 3.