Kerchak was the leader of the gorillas and a major character in Disney's 1999 animated feature film, Tarzan.
Background[]
Personality[]
Kerchak was a large and powerful gorilla who would do anything to protect his family and its people. Due to this, Kerchak often appeared to be mistrusting, cold, judgmental, aggressive towards outsiders. Tarzan noted that he felt threatened by anyone that was different from him. Throughout most of Tarzan's early life, Kerchak treated him with disdain and disapproval and refused to accept him as his son. However, after Tarzan saved Kerchak and his family from Sabor, Kerchak finally grew to respect him and, by the end of the film, tried to protect Tarzan from Clayton which cost him his life. While he was dying, Kerchak asked Tarzan to forgive him for never treating him as a member of his family and finally believed that Tarzan was his son.
Before the death of his biological son, Kerchak appeared to be warmer and more playful as he was seen playing with the baby gorilla but after the child was killed by Sabor, he grew cold, bitter, and grumpy. Despite his intimidating demeanor, Kerchak cared deeply about his family and was willing to risk his life to protect them. He did occasionally show a caring side as when Tarzan was presumed dead after falling off a cliff, Kerchak tried to comfort Kala. He also seemed to have become somewhat overprotective of the gorillas following the death of his biological son, as he refused to adopt a baby Tarzan because he feared it may endanger his family, in spite of being clearly harmless.
Kerchak was a powerful fighter and his massive frame and brute strength gave him the advantage over most opponents. However, he could be outmaneuvered by more agile fighters as shown when he fought against Sabor who used her superior speed and agility to gain the advantage before Tarzan intervened.
Physical appearance[]
Kerchak was a large, adult male gorilla with black hair and gray skin. Some of the hair on his back is silver because Kerchak is a silverback gorilla (the dominant male in a gorilla family). His forearms are enormous and his head is rather large. His eyes are brown and small in comparison to the rest of his head.
Trivia[]
- Kerchak appears to have the original novel equivalent's name, but the original novel version of Tublat's personality. In the novels, Kerchak was more violent and was responsible for the murder of Tarzan's father instead of Sabor in the film (in the books, Tarzan's mother died of natural causes). Paradoxically enough, the exact opposite is true with Tublat.
- Originally Harrison Ford was considered for the role of Kerchak before Lance Henriksen was chosen.
- Like real gorillas, Kerchak is depicted beating his chest with the palms of his hands as opposed to clenched fists commonly depicted in gorillas in both popular culture and public imagination.
- However, in his later appearance in the television series, he is seen beating his chest with his fists after defeating Tublat, rather than with his palms.
- It is possible that besides his and Kala's son, Kerchak could also have been the father of Terk, Flynt and Mungo and the other young gorillas of the troop as in real life gorilla troops, only the dominant male can mate with the females although there have been cases of dominant males who allowed the other males in their group to mate in order to secure their loyalty and friendship. Besides they don't seem to threat him as their father nor they refer to him as such.
- One of the trailers for the film, shows Kerchak throwing Tarzan who attempts to restrain Kerchak when he attempts to attack Clayton after catching him pointing his gun at a baby gorilla and throwing him aside hitting his back on the branch. That scene does not appear in the film itself. This scene is trimmed to show Tarzan landing on the ground instead. This scene is possibly make it less violent and it would’ve gotten a PG rating.
- Kerchak is abnormally large for a gorilla. The western gorilla is on average 5ft 4in tall; slightly shorter than an average person today.