Two Brothers [HD]

Tiger, Tiger, Burning Bright...
'Two Brothers', a UK-French film collaboration project under the direction of Jean-Jacques Annaud (known for 'The Bear' and 'The Name of the Rose') and written by Alain Godard and Annaud, is at once the heartwarming and heartwrenching tale of two Bengal tigers, While the advertising makes it seem like a Disney-esque film, this is not really one for younger children, so parents should beware. In today's world there are many people who are not particularly nice toward wild animals; a hundred years ago, the time period during which this was set, there was even less regard for the great animals of the jungle, seen as objects for sport and amusement rather than creatures of integrity in their own right. I went with two adults, one of whom felt it necessary to leave the theatre for a brief while; there were children present in the theatre, and again I saw parents taking their children out at some of the more troublesome scenes - unfortunately, many didn't return for the happy ending. This...

Beautiful, moving, rewarding.
An absolutely beautiful movie, and a very moving story. Definitely a movie I will be recommending to everyone. As writer/director Annaud has commented, and as anyone who knows animals can tell you, tigers are intelligent, emotional creatures and the premise of "Two Brothers" is simple: the tigers want to live their lives in peace. The movie does not sugar-coat the way tigers have been treated (not that there is any on-screen gore) and so may prove to be an emotional roller-coaster for the sympathetic. Hopefully the richness and skill of the storytelling will reach out and make even more people sympathetic to their fellow creatures.

"Two Brothers" is beautifully photographed, and very intelligent in its depiction of the tigers. They even got the tigers' vocalizations right--tigers have more of a vocabulary than most movie makers seem to know about, but Annaud got it right.

Favorite scenes: The woman reading typical early-20th-century "big game hunting adventures" to her son while...

Family Bonds and Men's Cages
Director Jean-Jacques Annaud knows how to open our hearts.

In 1988 his acclaimed masterpiece, THE BEAR, introduced us to that orphaned cub whose feisty and inquisitive ways quickly won the viewers over. This time, with TWO BROTHERS, it's Annaud's extraordinary tigers that warm our hearts and stir our sympathies.

In the ruins of the jungle-covered temples of 1930s French Indochina two tiger cubs are born, later named by their human masters Kumal and Sangha. Kumal is the fierce one. He is brave, curious and quite protective of the playful but rather timid Sangha.

The world of men brings tragedy to the tiger family. The cubs' father is killed and Kumal, separated from his mother and brother, is captured and eventually sold to a small-time circus. Soon after, Sangha also gets caught by a hunting party. Initially a pet and playmate for the local French administrator's young son, he unfortunately ends up in the menagerie of a native prince where he is...

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