Review of Kundun (1997) by Sania C — 11 Oct 2013

The movie Kundun is basically based on the life of the 14th Dalai Lama. The movie starts with the mother telling the unique story to her child (Kundun) about his birth time. She told him that when you were born, you did not cry like other babies.

The child start's acting was amazing. Truly, his acting made me feel like that I want to watch this movie. There was a scene when he was sitting outside and he saw two insects fighting, he separated them with his hands and put one insect on a higher place near to a hole.

This act gave me a feeling that this shows his non-violence nature. When he was taken by the other monks, his expressions and acting was too good. I felt very bad when he was calling his mother while crying and told tombo that "I don't like it here" and then innocently asked about the women on the painting.

It was sad that he was taken away from his family. I would say that I loved the movie when Dalai Lama was 5 and 7 years old, but when he was grown up, movie started getting boring. I missed the child star throughout the movie then.

This movie has shown the strong belief of reincarnation among Buddhists. Regin who found Kundun as the reflection of Buddha, the 14th Dalai Lama, told Kundun that" you are born again, and you will be born again and again until the life stays, you can stay as long as you want".

Also one of the monks read the 13th Dalai Lama's letter to him that says that China will try to invade Tibet. When Kundun says" what can I do, I am just a boy" the monk replies "you are the one who wrote this letter, you must know what to do".

The story plot is really strong, but it could have been more interesting. I want to say something about his father's death, I felt terrible when I saw their funeral act. I was feeling like throwing up because it was not even easy to see in the movie that they cut the dead body in pieces and feed it to birds.

I know every religion has their own way of funerals and burials, but I never imagined that some religions do this. I think it was a good movie, but it could have been better. 3 Stars!