rinche-98558 This movie is based on a semi-autobiographical novel and I think they did a pretty good job in turning a literary piece of art into a cinematic experience. This is one of the reasons I gave this movie 7 stars. Other reasons included great performances (extremely natural and believable), beautiful scenery and the amount of empathy the creatures from this movie were able to develop in me from beginning to end. Of course, all of the creatures except...humans. Ok, you can try to understand them, but if you are a sensitive person you can't help but hate every single character here except the Chinese student who adopted the little wolf. The main character is the only character with a sensitive heart and a pure soul. Yes, there is a little kid from the village, I'm sorry. I studied Chinese language and literature and I spent some time in China while I was a college student, I think this is is a very accurate portrayal of Chinese people, no matter if we are talking about people from big cities or countryside. Unfortunately, it is very difficult to find a highly sensitive Chinese person. They can be wise and smart, but they are practical and cruel. And I couldn't enjoy the movie. Being a huge animal lover, my heart was shaking all of the time. The scenes are highly graphic, brutal and disturbing. I agree that these types of movies are necessary for us to raise our awareness about many things that happen between men and animals and to try to change and improve the relationship somehow. I liked the ending scene because in a certain way it blended sensitivity with "coldness", wild warrior spirit of the wolf was compared with still naive and culturally embedded spirit of the young Chinese student and they did that in a strong and emotional way. (I am not a native English speaker, so please don't laugh if something sounds strange in this review ;) ). All in all, I think that people who really love animals will have a really hard time while watching this movie.

siderite 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.

AkelaLoneWolf This movie was essentially on ecology, environmental protection and on the dignity of nature and all creation - here exemplified by the Mongolian wolf. The tradition and culture of Mongolian tribes unfolded before the eyes of the chief protagonist, a city boy from Beijing sent to these realms by waves of the Cultural Revolution. The audience followed his adventures and drank in the beauty of the awe-inspiring grasslands, learnt about the (sometimes cruel) facts of life and were drawn into the joys and woes of the Mongolian herding tribe. Fascinated by the wolves, the Han student rashly tried raising a wolf cub. His actions led to unimaginable consequences and irreparable damage as he found himself accomplice to ruining the Mongolian people and the grasslands he grew to love. In the end with a heavy heart we witnessed the darkening destiny of the "great life" of the grassland, ever intertwined with that of the "little lives" of all life forms dependent on it. The movie tried to portray that there was a faint speck of light and hope with the return of the captive wolf, though it was not really comforting. Fabulous acting on the part of the wolves; with discernible laudable effort and bonding between trainers and the animals. Worth watching despite the unflattering take on humanity and greed, if only for the noble creatures of its namesake.

ifree Cineplex 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.