Two Brothers film review

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TWO BROTHERS

Fifteen years after the international success of The Bear, director Jean-Jacques Annaud returns to the wild and delivers a charming film about two tiger cubs. There's a lot in Two Brothers that will please adults - not least the ever-present question of how some of the film's extraordinary sequences were shot %u2013 and the films looks destined to become something of a perennial favourite for children, given its fairy tale premise.

Set in Indochina in the early part of the twentieth century, the film's locale serves as a bridge between the old world and the new. The old world is represented by the traditions and the giant religious statues that are to be found all over the forests, while Guy Pearce's Aidan McRory is the new order, a hunter who has come to the country to strip it of its ancient monuments in order to sell them at auction to European collectors.

In the middle of such a trip, McRory encounters two characters who will change his way of thinking, and gradually soften his character as the film progresses. Kumal and Sangha are two tiger cubs who spend their idyllic days roaming the forest with their parents, and the extraordinary opening scenes capture the simple and pleasant existence of these animals. Both are very quickly given human attributes, with one being fierce and the other soft, and when the inevitable tragedy occurs and the two are split up, the notion of longer-term memory in the animal world is explored, as both animals yearn for the days when they could live happily together.

Ending up in two different worlds - one the housepet of the French ambassador (Jean-Claude Dreyfus) and his son (Freddie Highmore), the other trained as a circus performer, the two are finally reunited at the behest of the local Indochinese Prince, who demands a Gladiator-style fight to the death between the two long-lost brothers. McRory's duty as a hunter and his growing awareness of the animal's plight force him to make a crucial decision.

The photography, camerawork and direction are faultless throughout - the whole effect is only slightly marred by the inclusion of some CGI shots of the tigers - and this labour of love pays off enormously. The tigers are simply extraordinary and the mind boggles as to how exactly these animals were made to act, for that is what they appear to be doing. Their human counterparts may appear somewhat one-dimensional, but the simple and honest storyline doesn't demand hugely complex personalities.