The first half hour or so involves only the cubs, and these scenes play like a scripted documentary. Occasionally there will be a scene that stretches it, as when Kumal, who was trained in a circus to jump through a ring of fire, apparently uses telepathy to convince Sangha he can do it, too. We're usually convinced we are looking at real tiger cubs doing what they really want to do, even when it goes against their nature. In both films, Annaud achieves almost miraculous moments, the result no doubt of a combination of training, patience, and special effects. In "Two Brothers," the cubs may not understand English, but they get the drift. In that one, the speech of the hunter ( Jack Wallace) was presented not so much as language as simply the sounds that human animals make. "Two Brothers" was directed and co-written by Jean-Jacques Annaud, whose international hit " The Bear" (1989) did not sentimentalize its bear cub but treated it with the respect due to an animal that earns its living under the law of the wild. It is less wondrous in its human story, involving such walking stereotypes as the great British hunter, the excitable French administrator, the misunderstood Indochinese prince, and the little French boy who makes friends with Sangha and sleeps with him at an age with Sangha is plenty old enough for his own bed, preferably behind bars. The movie is astonishing in its photography of the two tigers, played by an assortment of trained beasts, augmented by CGI.
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January 2023
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