Kato, also referred to as Kato the Knight (Swedish: Riddar Kato) is the main antagonist of Astrid Lindgren's fantasy novel Mio, My Son, and its 1987 film adaptation Mio in the Land of Faraway.
He was portrayed by the late Sir Christopher Lee, who also played Frankenstein's Monster in The Curse of Frankenstein, Count Dracula in Hammer Studios' Dracula films, Fu Manchu in Hammer's Fu Manchu series, Lord Summerisle in The Wicker Man, Francisco Scaramanga in The Man with the Golden Gun, King Haggard in The Last Unicorn, Count Dooku in Star Wars, Cushing Catheter in Gremlins 2: The New Batch, Saruman in Sir Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit film trilogies, and The Jabberwock in Alice in Wonderland. In the Swedish dub he was voiced by the late Tor Isedal.
History[]
Kato was an evil knight ruling over the Land Outside, a dark region beyond the lush and peaceful Land of Far Away. He terrorizes the King of Faraway and his people, having ordered his men to capture children from their parents and take them as slaves. The mere mention of his name can cause frightening gusts of winds in the Land of Faraway.
The prince of Faraway, Prince Mio, alongside his friend Jum-Jum, travels to the Land Outside to defeat Kato and return the children. During their journey, following the advice of an old hermit named Eno, they seek out the Forger of Swords, a blacksmith imprisoned inside a mountain by Kato, forced to make weapons for his soldiers. He reveals that while he has been forced to create swords that "kill the innocent and the good", he has secretely worked for thousands of years to make a sword powerful enough to cut through metal and stone, and thus powerful enough to pierce Kato's stone heart and bring and end to his reign, which he gifts to Mio.
Once Mio and Jum-Jum sneak inside Kato's fortress, they get captured by Kato and his men. Kato imprisons them in the tower where prisoners are forced to endure a powerful magical starvation, which they'll succumb to before dawn. He also throws the sword into the lake surrounding the fortress, but it is retrieved by two of the children he has transformed into birds, who bring it to Mio and Jum-Jum. Armed with the sword and hidden by a magic cloak, Mio sneaks through the fortress and seeks out Kato in his throne toom, where he challenges the knight to a duel. Finally, Kato is defeated and invites Mio to kill him. Mio pierces his heart and Kato's body turns to stone. Soon after, Kato's fortress begins to crumble, leaving only a pile of rubble.
After Kato's death the barren forest turns back into a beautiful forest it once was and the children turned into birds are returned to their original selves.
Movie version[]
Kato is largely unchanged in the movie, with the biggest difference being the final battle. Whereas in the book, Mio disarms Kato after a long fight, the fight in the movie is much shorter, with Kato's sword breaking in two when Mio blocks his first attack.
Kato grabs a new sword, but this soon also breaks. Finally, he opens a secret panel in the wall, unleashing a powerful wind at the prince, and then an orb of fire under his control, which he sends after Mio. After evading it, Mio eventually drives it back against Kato, before absorbing it into his sword, at which point Kato admits defeat.
However, Kato warns him that in the end, Mio cannot destroy evil, and that there will eventually be another Kato to replace him. He offers to let Mio to return home in exchange for his life, but Mio rejects the offer, countering that if Kato kills him, another prince will oppose him. In response, Kato makes one last attempt to kill Mio, but is stopped by the prince piercing his heart.
Powers[]
In addition to being a skilled swordsman, Kato is also a gifted sorcerer. He is capable of, among other things, transforming children into birds and making chains out of hatred, said to be indestructible, with which he imprisons the Forger of Swords. In the book, he also transforms Miramis into a black horse after capturing it, and in the movie, he summons an orb of flame which he controls with his iron claw.
Kato also seems to radiate evil or hatred, to the point where the Land Outside is barren and lifeless, with dead forests and lakes. Even the night seemingly lasts forever. Only after his death does this spell finally break and, with the dawn, life begins to return to the region once more.
Perhaps his most frightening ability is ripping out peoples hearts with his iron claw and replacing them with stone. This doesn't kill his victims, but instead enslaves them, with the implication being that this is how he expands his army.
Kato also possesses a form of immortality, with it being revealed he has lived for thousands of years without aging. He can also seemingly confer this immortality to others, like the children he has kidnapped and the Forger of Swords, all of whom have remained alive for thousands of years.
Personality[]
Kato is shown to be a cruel and coldhearted man, not only unconcerned with the suffering he causes, but outright reveling in it. This can be seen in how he imprisoned the Forger of Swords rather than enslave him, and also when trying to decide on how to deal with Mio and Jum-Jum, musing on several methods, including turning them into birds or ripping their hearts out and enslaving them, before finally deciding on having them starve to death.
He instills terror in almost all who know him, most notably the people of Faraway, but also his own people, with Eno the Hermit explaining that many living within Kato's lands act as his spies. The one exception is the Forger of Swords, who neither fear nor willingly serves Kato, and instead openly hates him.
It's revealed, however, that Kato is also deeply miserable, willingly removing his armor and inviting Mio to kill him after his defeat, admitting that he longs to be free from the pain his stone heart causes him. Mio realizes that for all his cruelty, perhaps there was nobody who hated Kato more than himself.
In the book, after Kato's death, a tiny bird appears seemingly out of nowhere on the windowsill of his chamber, implied to be the last remnant of good within him. In the movie, after Kato's body falls into rubble, a large, orange jewel is left behind, which becomes a bird in Mio's hand. In both versions, Mio allows it to fly away with it happilly singing, finally free after having been trapped inside Kato for so long.