Touchstone Pictures
Not part of a collection.
Kundun
The destiny of a people lies in the heart of a boy.
From childhood to adulthood, Tibet's fourteenth Dalai Lama deals with Chinese oppression and other problems.
- Original title
- Kundun
- Language
- EN
- Country
- US
- Budget
- $28,000,000
- Revenue
- $5,684,789
CinemaSerf
Sep 6, 2022 · via TMDB
If anyone were ever to question the undoubted skill of cinematographer Roger Deakins, then they need only watch this beautifully crafted story of the youth of the 14th Dalai Lama. Filmed in the Moroccan Atlas mountains, for obvious reasons, Martin Scorsese provides us with a lavish, colourful and thought-provoking postulation on just how this young man was selected, after a four year search, to become the venerated spiritual leader of a peaceful nation of farmers and monks, buried deep in the Himalaya mountains. The boy was but two, but already there was a fear amongst these folks for whom time has largely stood still, that their neighbour has designs on their homeland. As the boy ages into youth, those threats manifest themselves more practically and by the end, the man has little choice but to embark on a perilous journey to safety in India. The actors are perfect for their roles - the three iterations of the principal character morph seamlessly together as he must learn to tread a very thin line and attain the level of political acuity necessary to deal with the disarming, but ruthless, Chairman Mao (Robert Lin). Philip Glass scores well too - grand and intimate orchestrations complimenting well the beautifully coloured costumes and the rising political temperature. It does take it's time, but it is a subtly delivered hypothesis, this. It suggests more than it imposes on history and that makes for a more complete film to enjoy. Sure it has a message, quite a few as it happens, but they are there for us to develop ourselves - Scorsese doesn't tell us what to think. He invites us. Deakins was nominated for an Oscar for this, and to appreciate that fully then do try to see it on a big screen. In any case, it's well worth a watch offering plenty of food for thought.
User reviews courtesy of TMDB.
Robert Lin
Chairman Mao
Kim Chan
Second Chinese General
Henry Yuk
General Tan
Ken Leung
(voice)
Yoon C. Joyce
Chinese soldier (uncredited)
Ben Wang
General Chang Ching-Wu (uncredited)
Dante Ferretti
Production Design
Francesca Lo Schiavo
Set Decoration
Randall Balsmeyer
Title Designer
Roger Deakins
Director of Photography
Dante Ferretti
Costume Design
Stefano Maria Mioni
Stunts
Martin Scorsese
Director
Thelma Schoonmaker
Editor
Ellen Lewis
Casting
Melissa Mathison
Co-Producer
Philip Glass
Original Music Composer
Melissa Mathison
Screenplay
Mountains Clad in Green
Le Baron et l'Empereur : Japon, la voie de la guerre
Climbing to Spring
Gladiator
Forced Labour: SOS from a Chinese Prisoner
Song of Tibet
Sul Tetto del Mondo - Walter Bonatti e Rossana Podestà
Love, Simon
Farewell My Concubine
What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?
Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring
Dogville
Mysterious Skin
The Eight Mountains
The Last Emperor
Light Arose
Do No Harm
The Commissar of Light
Blind Shaft
Samsara
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
Ludwig
As Good as It Gets
The Mission
Interview with the Vampire
Evil
Lust, Caution
Torch Song Trilogy
Seven Years in Tibet
The Insect Woman
Elizabeth
Babette's Feast
Tai-Chi Master
Beautiful Thing
Queen Margot
The Protector
Sissi: The Young Empress
Heartbeats
Once Upon a Time in China
Gorillas in the Mist
The Brave
Shanghai Express
The Warrior
Dongmei
My Own Private Idaho
Will You Please Stop, Please
Amen.
The Emperor and the Assassin
Ash Is Purest White
Broken Blossoms or The Yellow Man and the Girl
Lost Horizon
Winter Sleepers
Gods and Monsters
The Blue Light
Curse of the Golden Flower
Wally of the Vultures
Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress
Elizabeth: The Golden Age
Wicked Priest 2: Ballad of Murder
The Shift
Kuduz
Ménage
Fasten Your Seatbelts
Shoot to Kill
Radioactive
Beautiful Boxer
M. Butterfly
A Quiet Life
The Music Lovers
The Story of Zhou Enlai
Aśoka
Blind Husbands
The Ballad of the Ferocious...
Mongolian Ping Pong
Die Geierwally
120
Little Buddha
Woman Basketball Player No. 5
A Thousand Years of Good Prayers
Die Geierwally
What I Did for Love
Die Geierwally
Zhao Yiman
Caligula
Words with Gods
The Whores
The Next Karate Kid
Mr. Miao
Up to the World
The Guardian Angel
Glass Chin
Tears of the Sexten Dolomites
Einmal noch die Heimat seh’n
Arriba quemando el sol
Tea War: The Adventures of Robert Fortune
Tears in Suzhou
Still Alive – The Drama on Mount Kenya
The Spring of Huang Jueping
Nothing left but the horizon
Erosion
I Swear
Temple Grandin
The Last Emperor
Black Narcissus
Richard Jewell
An Inspector Calls
Remember
Darkest Hour
The Kite Runner
To Walk Invisible
Seven Years in Tibet
Boy A
The Lovely Bones
Belfast
The Steel Helmet
Munich - The Edge of War
The Wave
Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story
55 Days at Peking
We Are Marshall
Flicka
Everest
The Inn of the Sixth Happiness
Steve Jobs
Tigertail
Rob Roy
The War
I Never Sang for My Father
The Last Rifleman
The Eichmann Show
Queen of the Ring
Outbreak
Beyond Rangoon
Light of My Life
Extraordinary Measures
Little Buddha
Waiting for Anya
Mary
Mad City
Snow Flower and the Secret Fan
Blue Chips
Holy Lands
Raid on Entebbe
Replicas
The Brotherhood of Justice
Ballistic
Baltimore
6 Below: Miracle on the Mountain
The Cat's Meow
Birth of the Dragon
The Girl in the Book
Genghis Khan
Dec 11, 1997
New York City, New York
Dec 25, 1997
Jan 16, 1998
