Life of Pi (2012)

A young man who survives a disaster at sea is hurtled into an epic journey of adventure and discovery. While cast away, he forms an unexpected connection with another survivor: a fearsome Bengal tiger.

Director:

Ang Lee

Writers:

Yann Martel (novel), David Magee (screenplay)

Stars:

Suraj Sharma, Irrfan Khan, Adil Hussain

Top 250 #190 | Won 4 Oscars. Another 40 wins & 73 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Suraj Sharma	...	Pi Patel
Irrfan Khan	...	Adult Pi Patel
Ayush Tandon	...	Pi Patel (11 / 12 Years)
Gautam Belur	...	Pi Patel (5 Years)
Adil Hussain	...	Santosh Patel
Tabu	...	Gita Patel
Ayaan Khan	...	Ravi Patel (7 Years)
Mohd. Abbas Khaleeli	...	Ravi Patel (13 / 14 Years)
Vibish Sivakumar	...	Ravi Patel (18 / 19 Years)
Rafe Spall	...	Writer
Gérard Depardieu	...	Cook
James Saito	...	Older Insurance Investigator
Jun Naito	...	Younger Insurance Investigator
Andrea Di Stefano	...	Priest
Shravanthi Sainath	...	Anandi

Storyline

In Canada, a writer visits the Indian storyteller Pi Patel and asks him to tell his life story. Pi tells the story of his childhood in Pondicherry, India, and the origin of his nickname. One day, his father, a zoo owner, explains that the municipality is no longer supporting the zoo and he has hence decided to move to Canada, where the animals the family owns would also be sold. They board on a Japanese cargo ship with the animals and out of the blue, there is a storm, followed by a shipwrecking. Pi survives in a lifeboat with a zebra, an orangutan, a hyena and a male Bengal tiger nicknamed Richard Parker. They are adrift in the Pacific Ocean, with aggressive hyena and Rickard Parker getting hungry. Pi needs to find a way to survive.

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Plot Keywords:

Tiger | Zebra | Survival | Lifeboat | Orangutan | 

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Genres:

Adventure | Drama | Fantasy

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated PG for emotional thematic content throughout, and some scary action sequences and peril

Details

Official Sites:

Official Facebook Official Twitter

Country:

USA Taiwan

Language:

English Tamil French Japanese

Release Date:

21 November 2012 (USA)

Also Known As:

Una aventura extraordinaria

Filming Locations:

India

Box Office

Budget:

$120,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend:

$22,451,514 (USA) (21 November 2012)

Gross:

$123,321,125 (USA) (29 March 2013)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Fox 2000 Pictures, Dune Entertainment, Ingenious Media

Technical Specs

Runtime:

127 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital Datasat

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Since the rights were optioned in 2002 several directors have been attached to direct including M. Night Shyamalan, Alfonso Cuarón and Jean-Pierre Jeunet.

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Goofs

When the camera zooms out after the flying fish have gone, the raft is not anywhere to be seen. However, in the next scene, it is still connected to the boat.

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Quotes

Adult Pi Patel: Now we have to send our little boy to the middle of the Pacific.
Writer: And make me believe in God.
Adult Pi Patel: Yes, we will get there.

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Crazy Credits

The end credits are also in 3D

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Connections

Featured in The 70th Annual Golden Globe Awards (2013)
Nominee clips.

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Soundtracks

"Raga Ahir Bhairav"
Vocals by Pandit Jasraj
Courtesy of Saregama India
By arrangement with The Royalty Network, Inc.

User Reviews

The most imaginative film this year

''I had to tame him,'' (Pi) realizes. ''It was not a question of him or me, but of him and me. We were, literally and figuratively, in the same boat." From Life of Pi by Yann Martel.

You will see no more imaginative film this year than Life of Pi, whose conceit of a young Indian boy stranded with a Bengal Tiger in a lifeboat amid the Pacific Ocean is fantastical yet real in its metaphoric implications. While the framing device of a story told to a stranger uses the old flashback, the lonely lifeboat is as new as any story told in the last century.

The film begs interpretation from the multiplicity of religions to the place of mankind in a hostile, Darwinian world. Ultimately the benign brotherhood of beasts and humans is affirmed not so much by lofty philosophy but by the necessity of man and beast working together to survive.

The digital rendering of animals, especially the Bengal Tiger, is beautiful to behold. The opening scene in Pi's family zoo could be right out of Terence Malick's visionary camera, a montage of nature gorgeous in its simplicity. The several formalistic shots of the boat at night are worthy of the best lighting in the best aquariums in the world. Together with the impressive use of 3D, director Ang Lee has visually taken us from the opulence of Crouching Tiger and the minimalism of Brokeback Mountain into a fusion world of fancy and reality. The images are stunning.

In the end, Lee is interested in the individual's place in the universe as he struggles to harness nature and yet live in harmony with these elements. The conflict with the gross cook aboard the Japanese cargo ship taking Pi's family and animals to Canada is emblematic of the challenges facing the gifted with the groundlings. Pi's relationship with tiger "Richard Parker" represents all mankind's struggle to live in harmony with the forces it cannot control.

"Believing in everything is the same as believing in nothing," says Pi's father because Pi samples religions from Hinduism and Buddhism to Catholicism and Judaism and wants them all. Although it is not given to us to have them all, Pi's piety practically makes us believers in the universal brotherhood.

The Life of Pi is everyone's life; the film is one of the best of the year and, even remembering the greatness of The Old Man and the Sea, Moby Dick, and Billy Budd, the best you will ever see about a boy, a tiger, and a boat.