Little Buddha

Starring:Keanu Reeves, Ruocheng Ying, Chris Isaak, Bridget Fonda, Alex Wiesendanger, Raju Lal, Greishma Makar Singh, Sogyal Rinpoche, Ven. Khyongla Rato Rinpoche, Ven. Geshe Tsultim Gyelsen, Jo Champa, Jigme Kunsang, Thubtem Jampa, Surehka Sikri, T.K. Lama, Doma Tshomo, Mantu Lal, Mountain Yogi, Rinzin Dakpa, Rudraprasad Sengupta
Director: Bernardo Bertolucci
Studio: Miramax
Product Type: DVD

Amazon.com

In many ways Little Buddha is a companion piece to Bernardo Bertolucci's The Last Emperor. A beautiful travelogue and history lesson unfolds in the two parts of this film: a historical text of Siddhartha (Keanu Reeves) and the contemporary quest of Lama Norbu (Ying Ruocheng), who believes he has found the reincarnation of his former teacher in a Seattle child. The ancient, magical tales sweep away the blasé contemporary action. Ruocheng's presence drives the story of discovery as the child learns about the teachings of Buddhism. A visual feast that will dazzle both young and old. In fact, were it not a religious icon, the youngsters might want Siddhartha dolls after viewing his magical on-screen adventures. Beautiful cinematography by Vittorio Storaro. --Doug Thomas

Description

Keanu Reeves (SPEED) and Bridget Fonda (IT COULD HAPPEN TO YOU) star in this motion picture spectacular from Academy Award(R)-winning director Bernardo Bertolucci (THE LAST EMPEROR). In a big American CIty, a boy and his family (Fonda and Chris Isaak -- SILENCE OF THE LAMBS) discover a story about a prince in a land of miracles. But the miracle becomes real when Tibetan monks appear, searching for their leader's reincarnation -- who they believe has been reborn in the boy. Suddenly, their worlds meet, leading the Americans on an extraordinary adventure!

Customer Reviews:

Great Story.......2007-06-28

The story (based on true events) starts with Monks searching for the reincarnation of their deceased Lama/teacher, who may be a boy in Seattle. The Monks give the boy a book, the story of Prince Siddharta. As he reads the story they shows scenes of Keanu Reeves portraying the Prince transforming into the Buddha. The journey for the boy continues with the meeting of two other candidates who may be the Lama, then they are off to Bhutan.

Great for all ages. I have watched it over and over.

Liberate Nirvana from unescapable reincarnation.......2007-06-08

The film is a monument to the respect we owe both to life and death, compassion for both the living who are also the dying but respect to both death and life. The film is an extremely emotional film about the great spirituality Buddhism is. But it remains rather folkloric about Buddha's life and the middle way is an English translation that does not mean what the original words meant. Today in English it means the refusal to choose either one way or another and the fact that we are lacking the courage we need to face and assume both life and death because life is great and death is just as great, and life is bad and death is just as bad. Life leads to death through decay and pain. But life is also the promise of rebirth through karma and death. Death is bad because it is the result of decay and pain. But death is good too because it is the door to rebirth through karma and death itself. That's what the middle way means, not neither nor, but both one and the other. There is some attachment, tanha in Pali, that has to be severed, to the middle way seen as an in-between and a non-commitment. You have to accept both sides of nature, the universe, existence, the beginning birth, the growing and decaying life, the ending death, and then if you believe in it the beyond of a new beginning in rebirth. The film is also by far too Tibetan. I am for the little chariot, the southern Asian Buddhism, not for the northern Asian Buddhism, and particularly not for Tibetan Buddhism. This last variety has replaced the non-commitment of Buddha to the existence of God, to the existence of a soul in man, a divine presence in that soul, and his commitment to the absolute absence of any permanence with a fetishized eternal not life but survival from one life to another. In other words nirvana does not exist anymore since for Buddha nirvana is the possibility to step out of the cycle birth-life-death-rebirth and the possibility to merge with the vast principle of universal existence. Nirvana has been emptied of its meaning and replaced by some kind of sainthood that peregrinates from one being to another. What's more the film insists too much on the rites and not on the social dimension of Buddhism. And this shows a social dimension that I had not found in the Buddhist temple I have visited and worked for. They do not teach to monks only but they have a teaching mission for everyone. They do not take care of the health of monks only but they heal and cure everyone. They do not help the members of the monastic community only, closed onto themselves as they appeared to be, but they help everyone in the community at large of which they are full members. In other words this film does not really give an image of the deep spirituality of Buddhism, the search not for one self because the self cannot exist since it is impermanent like anything else, but for the light that is hidden in the very middle of things. That's the best part of Buddhism, the meditation that enables you, through a slow and long learning process in which you have to be both guided and free, to dominate your feelings, your passions, your sentiments, your cravings too, without rejecting anything but by finding the just equilibrium that will enable you to enjoy beauty as much as not to be the slave of that beauty, for one example. Yes a Buddhist can enjoy music or flowers but a Buddhist will not become attached to these and forget that he has many responsibilities to himself, to his direct community, family or other, to the social community beyond and even to the world and the universe. The Buddhists I know are able to love other people and to feel and express deep feelings and yet to remain detached enough to be able to help the friend they love with the distantiation they and he or she need to find pleasure and control pain. That is the middle way too: enjoy the pleasure that will not bring pain and control the pain that may destroy the pleasure. To control does not mean to get rid of because it is impossible, to be indifferent because it is uncompassionate, inhuman, but to keep within some limits that will enable you to remain the main agent of your own life in symbiosis with those of your living companions.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris Dauphine & University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne

an excellent movie.......2007-01-14

a very cute tale of the life of buddha that is good for all ages.

A story within a story within a story.......2007-01-11

Some reviewers have come away from this film with the impression that it is an instructional film, letting English speaking audiences become aware of the basic story of the enlightenment of Prince Siddharta. Other reviewers have focused on the Seattle family which is transported out of their previous existance and culture into the possibility that their young son is a reincarnation of a holy LLama. Whereas I think this film does both of these story lines justice, I think there is a third story line in the film which is just as strong. This story is the quest by Llama Norbu for the reincarnation(s) of his teacher, then the death of Llama Norbu after his mission is accomplished, and finally the very moving spritual ceremonies at the end of the film where the monks mourn for Llama Norbu and the three children spread the ashes of Llama Norbu in Bhutan, India, and Seattle Washington.

Bartolucci gives us first a story line that Western audiences can accept; a white upper class American family is moved from their everyday existance to another culture and belief system by a group of gentle Tibetian monks. Within this story line is a child's version of the story of Prince Siddharta, played by Keanu Reeves, relating the origins of the Buddha. However, cleverly hidden amongst these parts is the quest of Llama Norbu, played to perfection by the wonderful Ying Ruocheng.

This is a beautiful film, which transports the viewer gradually and gently toward a exposure to the Buddhist faith.

The most beautiful adventure of men.......2006-12-24

Freedom resides already in ourselves.
One of the most outstanding movies I have ever seen.You'd appreciate this movie more if you know Who Siddharta was and what is Buddha.It's an advenbture of a young prince who renounced his comforts in looking for freedom.He discovered that the greatest enemy and devil we are fighting are located in our ownselves.
Bertolucci has success also with the production of 'The Last Emperor' which had captured millions of hearts in the world.
Here,aparted from the story of Siddharta, you are draw through an adventure with a little boy in searching for his identity as a reborn monk.
This movie proceeds quite slowly that makes you munch something all along it.Careful not to become a big Buddha.

Average customer rating:

East and West, of course they meet - they are One!
The Prince of Enlightenment.....

Little Buddha [Region 2]
Starring: Keanu Reeves , Ruocheng Ying , Chris Isaak , Bridget Fonda , and Alex Wiesendanger
Director: Bernardo Bertolucci
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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Little Buddha

ASIN: B00004VYCD

Customer Reviews:

East and West, of course they meet - they are One!.......2006-09-29

At first sight, this may look like a movie about reincarnation, far from our bed. No! It is an excellent explanation of how Buddhism can be "the answer", also to people in the West. We see a Tibetan monk looking for the reincarnation of his master who died 8 years ago. He seems to find the reincarnated old monk in the form of 8-year old Jesse, a typical American kid. Now, Jesse's typical American family thinks that Buddhism is weird, "what have we got to do with that?", and they kind of want to ignore the Tibetan monk. The Americans have their own life, no place for Buddhism there. Then all kinds of things start happening in the Americans' lives: the man's partner goes bankrupt, he later kills himself, etc. That is when, suddenly, the American man sees that in his way of life, he has no way of dealing with these things, and that Buddhism on the other hand is exactly talking about these things that happen in everybody's lives: loss, change, suffering, death and how to deal with them. That is where the 2 story lines beautifully merge into one story: the Westerners see that Buddhism talks about their life in Seattle as much as about life in the Himalayas. The old monk can now safely die, his mission accomplished. In fact at that point in the movie the 2 stories also merge with the third story line, the re-telling of the life of the historical Buddha. Thus, the life of Buddha, the crisis in the life of the Western people, and the story of the Tibetan monks and their search for meaning, all become one. One. The last scene of the movie says it all: the American child (wise like a little Buddha), floats the Tibetan monk's ashes on the river in Seattle, WA. His mother is looking on, smiling, pregnant with a new baby. Another little buddha on the way. Hmmm, didn't the old monk just die? ...

The Prince of Enlightenment............2006-07-11

Even Bernardo Bertolucci couldn't break Keanu out of his "Dude" persona from Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure. However, cinematically this film captures the beauty of Tibet and the subtle serenity of Buddhist life. Reeves pulls off Prince Siddartha ok but it's the "Little Buddha" reincarnation who steals the film.

Average customer rating:

Great Story
Liberate Nirvana from unescapable reincarnation
an excellent movie
A story within a story within a story
The most beautiful adventure of men

Little Buddha [Region 2]
Starring: Keanu Reeves , Ruocheng Ying , Chris Isaak , Bridget Fonda , and Alex Wiesendanger
Director: Bernardo Bertolucci
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

General | Drama | Genres | DVD | Video

( L ) | Titles | Features | DVD | Video
Similar Items:

Kundun
Seven Years in Tibet [Blu-ray]
Life of Buddha
Tibet - Cry of the Snow Lion
The Tibetan Book of the Dead (A Way of Life / The Great Liberation)

ASIN: B00004RYHB

Amazon.com

Customer Reviews:

Great Story.......2007-06-28

Liberate Nirvana from unescapable reincarnation.......2007-06-08

an excellent movie.......2007-01-14

a very cute tale of the life of buddha that is good for all ages.

A story within a story within a story.......2007-01-11

The most beautiful adventure of men.......2006-12-24

Average customer rating:

Little Buddha

ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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Life of Buddha
Siddhartha (Ws)
Kundun
Keanu Reeves: An Excellent Adventure
Little Buddha

ASIN: B000E79XXO

Product Description

Lama Norbu comes to Seattle in search of the reincarnation of his dead teacher, Lama Dorje. His search leads him to young Jesse Conrad, Raju, a waif from Kathmandu, and an upper class Indian girl. Together, they journey to Bhutan where the three children must undergo a test to prove which is the true reincarnation. Interspersed with this, is the story of Siddharta, later known as the Buddha. It traces his spiritual journey from ignorance to true enlightenment.

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