vincentlynch-moonoi
After reading some of the comments in the message board section, I felt that florin_andrei's comment from 2002 was best -- "Right, no tits, no explosions, no Ah-nold to break jaws and limbs, and to top it all, it expects you to think! That's outrageous! Worst movie ever!" That's the problem with many of the comments and some of the reviews of this film here on IMDb. Some of our viewers went to see a Keanu Reeves movie because he was "hot". And I guess he was in his own way. But when you think about it, this was not a KR movie. It was an ensemble film. KR wasn't on-screen even half of the time.People do like to hit on Keanu Reeves. And, while I doubt many would say he was ever the world's finest actor, with $3,599,064,053 worldwide aggregate box office (rank #31), he must have been doing something right. I look at some of the criticisms here and just laugh. For example, the accent was wrong. Even though I'm Buddhist and traveled fairly extensively in parts of Asia, I've never actually met a person from Nepal, so I have no idea whether his accent was appropriate or not, particularly since there would be NO APPROPRIATE ACCENT that we could fathom from 2,500 years ago. Let's see, how many people from Siddhartha's village spoke English 2,500 years ago????? Reeves did nicely here, and I quite admire how he emaciated himself to be able to portray the fasting Buddha.If one wants to criticize some acting here, I suggest targeting in on Chris Isaak, who turns in a stunningly bad performance. I don't know how he has done in acting since, but this was pitiful. Stiff. Unnatural. He didn't even move realistically.Another of the criticisms of this film is that, in terms of Buddhism, it is not very realistic. Really? Is that why 3 actual Tibetan incarnate lamas have significant roles in the film? Some people say that American boy is not realistic. I don't know about that. As a teacher/school administrator, I've met plenty of precocious children, and this performance seems rather realistic. After all, he isn't meant to be the average all-American boy; he's supposed to be different.Ying Ruocheng is superb as the main lama in the film. And Sogyal Rinpoche's performance was charming, and about as realistic as you can get since he is actually a leading Tibetan lama in real life.The performance of the other two children in the film are interesting, particularly the girl with self-importance and self-promotional skills...that surprised me a bit...I wonder if that would be realistic for someone like that to be a reincarnated lama.Special mention should be made of the photography. It is interesting how the cinematographer gave the film a different warmth depending on whether they were in Seattle, or Tibet, or back in Buddha's time. Quite lovely, really. And the sets and special effects helped tell the basic bio of young Buddha's life.Financially, this was a disaster at the box office. Which is what I would expect since it was clearly a niche film with an all too big budget. Casting Keanu Reeves may have been an attempt to cash in on a rising star's box office mojo, and clearly some of our "reviewers" went to the film to see KR, rather than because of the subject of the film.For me, a lot about this film comes down to how I feel as a Buddhist about non-Buddhist Americans (and others) watching this film. Does it present Buddhism as it really is? Yes and no. I'm a mix of a Theravadan (as in Thai) Buddhist and a philosophical Buddhist, and the film doesn't portray those schools at all (beyond the fable-istic telling of the life of Siddhartha/Buddha; it is a depiction of Vajrayāna Buddhism. My impression is that it depicts Vajrayana Buddhism fairly well, but that gives the impression that Buddhism is based on animism (e.g., the appearance of the seer), and to be honest, there is a lot of animism in Buddhism in the way it is approached in the Old World.Normally, based on only the cinematic aspects of this film, I would give it a "7". However, I'm going to bump it up to a "8" because it has one quality that separates it from typical popular cinema -- it is something different and unique. And not many directors or actors are willing to tackle something that is really different and a potential failure at the box office.
Crys Chan
I think that this was a strong and powerful movie. It was able to portray many aspects of the Buddhist culture as well as show people the story of the Buddha. This movie is great for people who have little to no knowledge about the Buddhist culture because it gives a great overview and the story line is very interesting. I think it does a good job of mixing in the story of Siddhartha and the storyline of Jesse Conrad. These two stories are really good parallels of each other. Also, I really appreciated the movie because it didn't have those Hollywood stereotypes of a Buddhist monk. Everything was really natural and simple and very easy to understand. Although this movie is somewhat old, I think it still does a good portrayal of the Buddhist culture. People may think that it is outdated, but I think that if one doesn't want to watch a documentary on Buddhism, then they should really watch this movie because along with a great story line of a Buddhist Lama trying to find the reincarnation of his former teacher, it really does give a good background story of Buddhism.
Janine Emerton
Surprisingly terrible film given these same people (Bertolluci for director, Sakamoto for music) made the The Last Emperor.Keanu Reeves is painful to listen to here. He only speaks with an irritating, phoney, attempted Indian accent.Sakamoto made such great music for The Last Emperor that it's one of the few soundtracks I've ever bought. But here, the music didn't move me, and I certainly wasn't rewinding scenes to hear the music again and again.The best aspect of the film is the visual appeal, but even here it's ghoolishly grotesque half the time. Bertolucci uses a cold blue lens for the shots in America, which is depressing, and had me wondering why he's adding this salt to the painful wound he already inflicts on me through the thoughts of two pointless Americans with no appeal or charisma.If I want to feel I'm back in ancient India, where your imagination leads you to see its colours and taste its spice and old world charm, I find reading any children's book of Buddha's life far more enriching and entertaining than this film. If you want an interesting intertwining of modern life and the thoughts of Siddharta Gautama, you might find listen to any talk by Ajahn Brahm on Youtube and it'll be far more enriching.
isjohan79
This movie is beautiful to watch but, really beautiful! the scenery and photograph its just a piece of art, but the story is very very weak, the movie knocks down too much about the reincarnation theme, and don't leave any space about the real teachings of Buddha, although the Keanu acting was not bad , Buddha is shown as a stupid teenager, we never feel captured or impressed by the Buddha in this movie, in fact the movie does not show what happens with the Buddha after find the illumination.The script is a disgrace it is only saved by the gorgeous artwork. i would not recommend anyone who is in a spiritual search, this is only recommended to western people who wants to reinforce his beliefs that Buddha is nothing special.
