Sorry, this movie sucks

Sick Product of a Sick System

Just perfect...

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

Notwithstanding some of the abrupt transitions within the stories of main characters, convincing and compelling decorations had made their business and the movie evokes a great multitude of emotions within the viewer. The Little Buddha movie describes the story of how a prince Siddhartha became an enlightened Buddha who understood the meaning of life and everything else in this world. Although, from my perspective, this movie would not really convince people about such concepts as reincarnation, and other aspects of Buddhist religion, it definitely provides a massive audience with a positive and bright ideas about the world perception. As a whole, this movie offers a vibrant insight into one of the most eloquent cultures of the world, and leaves a very pleasant sense about the fact that all of the things in this world are relevant, logical, and appropriate just in the way they are. Little Buddha illustrates a fascinating story of a Buddhist monk, Lama Norbu, who is looking for the reincarnation of his teacher. His search has brought him to the Seattle where a little boy -Jesse lives. Jesse's parents are classical upper middle-class, with his father being a successful engineer and mother - a math teacher. While at first they were quite skeptical about the story Lama Norbu told them about the reincarnation of his teacher and its relation to their son, Jesse, to the middle of the movie when Jesse's father loses his close friend and business partner, he decides to observe this 'unrealistic' phenomenon and try to find a future exploration for this story. Generally speaking, the acting of Jesse's father does not seem really convincing, and along with some sluggishness and frequent inconsistencies within the dialogues of the narrative, a massive work for the editing, and directorate had to be done. Fortunately, scenes were filmed from different, and quite interesting perspectives, and this made scenes to work in a way that they it seemed more cohesive, and logical. Majority of the scenes in the movie are exceedingly colorful, and bright. For instance, the moment when Siddhartha realizes that there are not only pleasures in this world, but also sufferings - very realistic images of those in the image of old, and sick people - and his amusement with these parts of the real life, play a tremendously important role in Buddha's story plot. In my opinion, this was one of the most powerful scene in a whole movie. Additionally, the way Siddhartha's servant was explaining him about those was extremely touching, and thought-provoking. Although sometimes the story of Siddhartha becomes quite unclear, not only because of some unrealistic moments (like the one where everyone in the 'kingdom' feel asleep, so he was able to escape from his 'prison'), but because of the undetailed and blurred narrative, as far as I am concerned, his story in this movie is described in a very sophisticated way. One of the things on which, I personally disagree with movie creators, is its inconsistency of the Lama Norbu's and his search for Lama Norju's reincarnation (including three candidates) story plot with Buddha's. However, this would not probably be the issue for most of the people, because it might seem for them that the place of Buddha's story is central within the whole religion anyways. As I have mentioned, it is my personal remark. Another thing that I had not clearly understood was the issuer related with the reincarnation. When Lama Norbu proclaimed that all of the three candidates, were, in fact, the reincarnation of his teacher - I assume that it was because he wanted the homeless child to find his home, and the possibility to get education, and not because all them actually were the reincarnation of Lama Norju. However, just as with the previous case - I may be wrong. In conclusion, I would say that Little Buddha is a very thought-provoking, and satisfying movie. In other words, when a viewer finishes to watch it, there is not a feeling within him that he had simply wasted his time. On the contrary, it leaves a viewer with a pleasant feeling, that there is a crucial reason why the art of the cinematography exists, in the first place. The way by which this interesting and compelling story was showcased within The Little Buddha, really justifies the presence of this expensive art in our world. The story of this movie offers an exclusively sophisticated insight into the lives of people, who as it seems practically live in a 'different galaxy', and describes the concepts by which they perceive this world to be. A viewer would be left with a strong feeling of justification, and satisfaction about the world order, because it is what the teachings of the Buddhism are about. The idea that - Everything in this world is impermanent, and the justice would find its order in the end - is really convincing and satisfying.

I came across this movie some time ago and after reading some positive reviews here decided to give it a go. Now my Mum always told me if you have nothing nice to say then just say nothing, but I really can't hold back this time, it was such an awful film.Let's start with the actors, specifically with Chris Isaak, how he managed to even pass the audition is beyond me. His acting is literally laughable (he was actually nominated for a golden raspberry for worst new star) and his co-star Bridget Fonda isn't much better either. Talk about wooden acting... they might as well just be holding the script and talking into the camera, in fact that would be an improvement. Next up is Keanu Reeves, who was obviously cast purely for his star power, playing the Indian Prince Siddharta who was to become the Buddha. There's plenty of hammy acting on display but at least he made an effort. The other actors were actually not bad, but it wan't enough to save this wreck.Next up, the cinematography. It's not terrible, but it's certainly not as 'beautiful' as some reviewers wrote. Some of the sets were pretty well done, there were some nice enough locations and the bits of CGI (creepy talking baby, creepy giant snake and super-fake apocalypse storm thing) while very dated now, were probably OK for the time, but it's really nothing special, just Hollywood standard.Now we come to the story, or stories, as there are two parallel story lines mixed together. The first is about some Tibetan Monks trying to find the reincarnation of their old master and woven into this is the story of Siddharta and his journey to enlightenment. The problem is that the first story has very little going on plot-wise, while the second story had to be way over-simplified for it to fit into under half a film. It just doesn't really work. Plus of course this film is pretty much a propaganda piece for Tibetan Buddhism and isn't shy about it either. Something tells me this film never had a debut in Mainland China...To top it all off there are all the WTF moments that constantly came up. Like why do the opening scenes where the monks meet the parents come off like a creepy horror movie, complete with tense music? Why does the Father have absolutely no problem when his son runs off and gets lost in the back-streets of Bhutan? He's just chilling in a café! Why did they randomly insert stock time-lapse footage of clouds as the view when the boy looks out the plane window? At first I thought it was supposed to be a dream, but nope, just the view apparently. There are just so many things that take you out of the film completely, it's ridiculous.To sum it up, this is a big-budget balls-up. Unless you're in the mood for a terrible film to laugh at, do yourself a favour and give this one a wide berth.

A great story, told by an obviously Mahayana Buddhist, where all the mystical elements were applied, but didn't actually take away from the story of Keanu Reeves as the Buddha. I guess that was the only downside for me. Keanu Reeves as the Buddha. I couldn't stop laughing, all I saw when I looked at him in the movie was him playing in Bill & Teds series. "Be excellent to each other". But for real, a good retell of the buddhas life which is what I was looking for when I started watching this movie. I found it interesting that the director chose to through the buddha's whole story in and it compliments well with the present and the little boy in seattle. I think that a lot of Buddhists would enjoy watching this because of the accuracy of the spiritual representation that makes up Buddhism, such as the Mahayana version of buddhas life, as well as how anyone can be the "Buddha" or in this case a "lama", and that's how the connection between the west and the east occur. Very cheesy movie but for those who want to know what Buddhism in its most basic form is all about, I would highly recommend watching it.

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.