Spoonixel Amateur movie with Big budget

ChicRawIdol A brilliant film that helped define a genre

Aubrey Hackett While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.

Ezmae Chang This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

MartinHafer "The Man Who Skied Down Everest" won the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature back in 1976. I most of this is because of the amazing cinematography. That's because apart from that, I found the film a bit pretentious, boring and disingenuous.The film consists of a western actor reading the journal entries of a Japanese guy who loves skiing in extreme situations. Some of these entries are insightful and interesting, others extremely pretentious. Regardless, you get LOTS of talk, when the film would have been so much better had it had some quiet moments. Additionally, when he eventually gets to this feat, you learn that he only went NEAR the top of this huge mountain and then skied down a very small portion. It's an amazing act, but not at all what you'd expect given the film's title. The bottom line is that I found myself nodding off a lot as I watched this film and that is not a good sign. Easy to skip.

Robert Hirschfeld I saw this film when it came out. Let me see now--this guy who had earlier skied down Mount Fuji manages to accumulate the funding and hire personnel to document what sounds on the surface like a bold and daring act---to ski down the world's highest peak. Well--AND HERE COMES THE SPOILER--what happens, see, after a large crew of people manage to help him get near the top--and a life is lost in the bargain--he gets on his skis, manages to make it down a very very short way, at which point his PARACHUTE OPENS...and that's that. And instead of burning the footage to hide this amazingly anticlimactic ending to an embarrassing debacle, the guy goes ahead and releases it. SPOILER ENDS I do admire the amazing courage and effort it must have taken the film crew to get some of the stunning shots they got. ANOTHER SPOILER--Oh yes, one of the Sherpas is killed by falling into a crevasse. The narrator, who is quoting the "daredevil skier, casually remarks that, according to the Sherpa religion, since this man's body cannot be recovered his soul will roam the world forever and never know rest. Is it worth it, the narrator muses. YES he answers--because it served the purpose of letting this clown "ski down Everest." I can't remember ever seeing a more meretricious piece of celluloid. This is one to miss at all costs.

edt-9 spoiler warning -- I reveal everything about what happened I'm a huge fan of skiing and mountain climbing, and if you're like me there's always this urge to combine the two, it's this itch that you just want to scratch. I'm also tired of the whole climb mount everest because it's the tallest mountain thing.What a magnificent goal. To climb 3/4 of the way up Everest and then ski down to the bergschrund (the huge crevasse between the mountain and a glacier). Just the idea tantalizes.Of course, if you do any skiing you have to realize, the actual ski event is nothing much. For instance, Blackcolme/Whistler has a vertical drop of somewhere around 5,000 feet, and I've done it a couple of times, the peak to creek trail, back when it was still out of bounds, it's an utterly magnificent run, and then I took the chair back up to the top and did it again! Anyway, the run on Everest would be less than 3,000 vertical feet, it would be all ice and rock, it would be quick and fast, and deadly. If he missed his stop he would fly into a crevasse. Needless to say he lived. Now the event itself was a mess, he got started, tried to do a plow, tried to do some turns, nothing would slow him down, so right from the start he realized he was in a hell of a position, so he just sat on his edges to try to stop, this ice was just as slick and hard as rock, of course his skis popped off, flying off into the air. He lived.Wow. He was the first to try. Since then a dozen skiers and snowboarders have attempted to shred their way down mount everest. On Oct 7, 2000 Davo Karnicar succeeded skiing from the top of everest to base camp, including skiing over the khumbu icefall. But someone had to be first, and that someone was Yuichiro Miura. I'm pretty sure nobody since Miura has used a parachute, it doesn't do anything useful, but I guess he had to try it out.If you have to ask yourself why spend weeks and months climbing a mountain, only to ski down it in minutes, then this movie is not for you.

benz2000e55-aa If you watch this movie because you expect a skiing movie, you will be disappointed. This is a movie about assaulting mount Everest and all that was involved in doing so in 1975. It is combined with a healthy dose of Japanese philosophy and a haunting narrative by Doulas Rain, the voice of Hal the computer in 2001. The narrator reads from the diary the skier kept during the assent. That combined with the music and the films overall look and pace makes it unlike anything I have every scene before. It is a dark journey up the mountain.I found it very moving and throughly enjoyed it. If you are a sports guy, skip it... Otherwise, give it a try.