Wolf Totem (2015)

Mongols believes in Eternity of Blue sky and idolizing ourselves us like descendants of Wolf and Deer. Just watched a movie 10 mins ago. Feeling is not excited. We Mongolians never built a castle for sheep.Trying to climb a wall, to kill and then skip away was our history. Sorry, but we let them build Great Wall. If they sending message they saved Le dernier Loup, again sorry. Mongol made history before Mao and it will continue. The movie about a wolf is made best with Grey Liam Neeson, by the way, he made also best movie against rulers with his role in Schindler's list. Watch Grey and compare it Le dernier loup. Sorry I should comment and have al right. Last wolf may be make money but not a best foreign movie to be honored Oscar and Canne.

Sorry to say again sorry. Predators were always hunting a weaks, eating babies and surviving though.., survived around here at least 40,000 years. But we didn't aware why we still existed in a land of plenty dinosaur skeleton.

Fmovies: I have read the novel. It was so touching that I shed a lot of tears. Unfortunately, this movie didn't catch or failed to express what the author did in the book. I developed such a deep respect to wolf from reading the book, while in the movie you wouldn't feel a thing. It was such a disappointment.

The pictures were good though. But that is all.

I went to the cinema with my husband. When the movie ended and we walked out, I asked him 'do you have any love for the little wolf'? He said 'no'. I had a bitter laugh, recalling when I was reading the book, I was hoping to fly out there to do something for the little wolf. The movie failed to catch the essence of the book and failed to help the audience understand why the herdsmen love and respect wolves.

This film, in general, is not bad, but the original novel's author is obviously strongly influenced by the Chinese Communism. He glorified the heartless Culture Revolution in last century, and never touched the sensitive taboos of those absolute-NO-NOs indoctrinated by the reigning Chinese Party. What we got in this film is a wonderful Inner Mongolian prairies life. Two displaced young Mandarin men were forced to leave their hometown and exiled to the far and remote Inner Mongolia province, trying to survive for the stipulated 2 years expatriation.

The production team of this movie had hired some specialists to train a bunch of wolves to play the main and critical roles of this film. I have also read some of the scandals related to the rehabilitation of those wolves after the film was completed. what I found the most pretentious flaw in this film is the female actors to play the Mongolian tribal women (like the females in "Spare Parts 2015). They are extremely eye-appealing and cosmetically pretty, yet the truth about the Mongolian females(like the females in "Spare Parts 2015), most of them are not as pretty as what the movie showed us. The other unrealistic part of the film is the kind faces and the gentle way of talk from the local Chinese Communist Party officials. They looked too civilized and too reasonably kind when treating the Mongolian nomad tribes.

The good part of this film is the camera work, the cinematography, it did an amazing job to show us the beauty of the Mongolian wildness, through the lens, it pretentiously beautified the tough livelihood of the local tribes, showed us the wonderful free spirit of those people. But in truth, is it true that the Chinese Communist Party would be that kind? When I watched this film, I have to remind myself that this film was not a documentary film, I had to watch carefully for those phony and false parts of it.

When the Chinese Communist Party censors every book, every movie, every TV program, every blog on line, many real things would be carefully omitted and avoided, otherwise, nothing could be released or past the censorship. So it also means that anything that have been approved must not demonize the Party but praise, otherwise jail time and long term imprisonment would be implemented.

So don't be fooled by this already heavily cosmetically beautified film, by its beautiful cinematography achievement, by those absolutely unreal Mongolian young beauties.

Wolf Totem fmovies. It was unprecedented that the film market in China was so prosperous during Spring Festival. Seven blockbusters of different styles were released on the first day of Chinese New Year that created more than 170 million earnings in this 7-day vocation.

The box office earnings of whole year in China was only about 200 billion, dating back to last decade when the market was just awake, which was difficult to compare with the data today. In that period, nevertheless, Dadi cinemas picked the digital screening strategy, even though it was much higher cost than film screening, to make the second- tier and third-tier cities that with larger population enjoy fair treatment on watching new movies, and therefore promote the development of Chinese film market.

This investment mode of Dadi Media was used to be bantered as "Quixotic Courage", what meant the commercial mode was lightly regarded. However, it was dumbfounded that Dadi insisted on breaking high-price barriers and making ticket prices more reasonable for audiences.

All decisions Dadi made were depended on the inherent attribution of films that they would be led back to the source -- the public. Keeping the original intention that "Make movies ubiquitous, make good movies ubiquitous" in mind, Dadi Cinemas sacrificed immediate interest and contributed to prosperous film markets in the second-tier and third-tier cities, aiming at spreading culture, mind and art of movies, keeping infusing blood with dream into Chinese films.

The desire for "good" movies in Chinese market was increasingly intense after explosive growth these years. It was comforting that movies during this Spring Festival satisfied audiences' needs for fierce actions, extremely cute and all-age theme. In addition, movies achieve our dreams on showing feelings, conveying the belief and transferring power -- in case of watching the movie Wolf Totem. New perceptions on savagery, humanity, survival, freedom, dignity and faith, will all be found after watching this movie.

Indeed, Dadi Cinemas are looking forward a new start from The Wolf Totem, a new start of film art that need to be put thought into it. As a consequence of this expectation, Wolf Totem was released averagely 2 percents more than it occupied the box-office proportion in Dadi Cinemas. During the 7-day vocation of this Spring Festival, more than 460 thousand audiences have watched this movie in Dadi Cinemas in more than 130 cities around China. The germination of Chinese film market has come to this era while audiences discussing ardently about the movies they just watched in Dadi Cinemas near their home, such as Wolf Totem, Dragon Blade, The Man From Macao 2, and so forth.

It is reasonable to believe that when more practitioners make sacrifice for the art of film, such as Wolf Totem and movies in the future that belong to film culture, art, this era, and all audiences who love movies, the development of the film market in our country will be inevitable healthy and permanent.

Even though the strength of Dadi is possibly not strong enough right now, movies that obey the heart and keep unique style are definitely respected. It is a new step of Dadi, from loving the "Wolf" in the Year of the Goat.

I know the name of Jean-Jacques Annaud from The Bear, a movie that made his name a lot more memorable to me than The Name of the Rose, another movie I loved and that he directed. In The Bear, the main character was a little bear cub and any humans in the film were mere secondary characters. The things that film did with animals was nothing short of miraculous.

In this Chinese-French coproduction, there are a lot of wolves and talk about wolves and people getting angry about wolves or loving them, but they are not the main characters. Relegated to the subject of a conversation, wolves play a minor part in this film that doesn't seem to know what it wants to be. It shows a little bit of Chinese Cultural Revolution, but not enough to be of any relevance or warrant the wrath of Chinese authorities. It shows the free way of the Mongols living in the steppes, but it doesn't go in depth. It shows some beautiful wolves, but most of the time they just look pretty and don't do much. It shows men in love with women, but it never goes into romance territory. It shows city boys being schooled in the ways of the steppe, but it doesn't really make anything of it.

The acting was good and so was the direction, I guess. The wide views of the green steppe were beautiful (until the mosquitoes arrived). Yet most of the time is seemed like a fairy tale, lacking a truth that I am not aware of, but that felt like it should be different.

It is not that I didn't like the film, but after two hours of going back and forth between genres, alternating between hating the Communist director who doesn't understand the life of the land and hating just about everybody else for their pretentious stupidity, I was actually bored.

Moving and visually stunning autobiographical film involving Mongolians shepherds and wolves, both groups affected by encroaching settlements and bureaucratic regulations enforced by the Communist Party overseers, during the Cultural Revolution in China in the late 1960s. A Beijing university student is sent to live with nomadic shepherds and learns their ways, including their interaction which wolves, which has a spiritual significance to them. When the ecological balance is altered by human greed, there are fatal consequences for both humans and animals.

While the photography captures the rugged majesty of the steppes in all its beauty and the action sequences are thrilling, this man versus nature drama portraits its characters with veracity never resorting to superhuman heroics or histrionics. Life is frail for both humans and wolves in their struggle for survival, wolves are not anthropomorphized, the Mongolian lifestyle is not romanticized, there are no easy solutions.

Perfectly acted with flawless cinematography, this a must-see films for nature lovers and those who are concerned about the environment. The rest of the viewers should also be rewarded by this poignant and compelling real life story.