A slow, bland, and story-less movie. It does however give a very good insight of living through the eyes of an exiled Tibetan monk. This is the movie's only saving grace, and the reason it gets 3 stars instead of 1 (or zero if possible!).
And even with the view from a monks perspective, the same experience could have been achieved with a 10 minute short film instead of a 90 minute feature!
It also seems they used real monks as actors because they are very bad thespians, even from behind the leveling shield of English subtitles!
The trailer for this movie is unique... I have seen trailers before that contain every single good part of a movie, they promise a lot, and the film turns out to be a disappointment. But in this case there are NO good parts in the movie! The trailer stitches a whole lot of boring scenes together in such a way as to make a mini-movie that is actually a lot better than the movie itself! It is quite an amazing accomplishment, and perhaps worth getting this movie out on DVD just to compare the trailer to the movie!
I saw this movie on the shelf at the local rental store one night, and read the synopsis on the back cover which sounded OK. Then I vaguely remembered seeing the trailer at some stage in the past and thinking it looked like a decent movie. So I thought "why not" and rented it... I should have thought "why" and NOT rented it!
Watched it on April Fools Day, which was appropriate in hindsight!
And even with the view from a monks perspective, the same experience could have been achieved with a 10 minute short film instead of a 90 minute feature!
It also seems they used real monks as actors because they are very bad thespians, even from behind the leveling shield of English subtitles!
The trailer for this movie is unique... I have seen trailers before that contain every single good part of a movie, they promise a lot, and the film turns out to be a disappointment. But in this case there are NO good parts in the movie! The trailer stitches a whole lot of boring scenes together in such a way as to make a mini-movie that is actually a lot better than the movie itself! It is quite an amazing accomplishment, and perhaps worth getting this movie out on DVD just to compare the trailer to the movie!
I saw this movie on the shelf at the local rental store one night, and read the synopsis on the back cover which sounded OK. Then I vaguely remembered seeing the trailer at some stage in the past and thinking it looked like a decent movie. So I thought "why not" and rented it... I should have thought "why" and NOT rented it!
Watched it on April Fools Day, which was appropriate in hindsight!