Michael Mann’s 1993 The Last of the...

Michael Mann’s 1993 The Last of the Mohicans (ABC Sunday at 8:30 p.m.) comes at you like a tomahawk. Hard, fast and brutal, it slashes and leaves you for dead. Unashamedly based more on the 1936 movie version than the James Fenimore Cooper novel, it takes place in 1757 during the French and Indian War, when those two sides united in an attempt to drive the British, who had tribal allies of their own, out of North America. A lean and steely-eyed Daniel Day-Lewis stars as Hawkeye, colonial-born but raised as the adopted son of the Mohicans’ chief.

The Man Without a Face (CBS Sunday at 9 p.m.) marked Mel Gibson’s ambitious and largely successful directorial debut. It intelligently relates the relationship that develops, against considerable odds, between a 12-year-old boy (Nick Stahl, a wonderful actor) in need of a father as much as some tutoring, and a former prep school teacher (Gibson). The teacher has been a recluse for many years because the right side of his face was badly scarred by fire. Gibson shines in the credible way in which he develops a pupil-and-teacher relationship and, in turn, a loving father-and-son relationship.

With Searching for Bobby Fischer (ABC Monday at 9 p.m.), a story of a typical New York City kid who turns out to have world-class chess potential, writer Steven Zaillian’s 1993 directing debut is a model of honestly sentimental filmmaking. Made with delicacy, restraint and unmistakable emotional power, it makes excellent use of actors Joe Mantegna, Laurence Fishburne, Joan Allen, Ben Kingsley and newcomer Max Pomeranc, as it deals with such provocative questions as the demands of parenthood and the burdens of competition and genius.

Splash (FOX Tuesday at 8 p.m.) is that high-spirited mermaid fantasy and romantic comedy, with Tom Hanks and John Candy drowned in the loveliness of fin-flipping Daryl Hannah. It’s not as good as it seemed in 1984, but director Ron Howard and the actors give it a nice bright bounce and splash.