Customer Reviews

Chang

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I bought the dvd to show to students -- it's full of wonderful details for folks interested in the history and way-of-life of villagers in 1920s Laos/Siam. The extras and commentary make for a fascinating history of Hollywood and American cultural penetration into Southeast Asia, as well. But ultimately it's the strong plot and amazing camera work that holds your attention. A great film. Not for lovers of happy animals, though. They kill plenty of them.

Chang is very well done: acting, direction and production techniques are superior, even now, 83 years later in 2010. This is a landmark production in terms of special effects that later achieved more notice when its directors made King Kong. It is authentic, providing visual cultural insights into life in rural Thailand in the 1920's. The movie can be enjoyed by other young and old.

Released in 1927 by the producer/director team who gave us the classic 1933 KING KONG, Merian C. Cooper's and Ernest B. Schoedsack's CHANG is a remarkable film that has not lost any of its ability to fascinate. This was Cooper's and Schoedsack's second expeditionary film after they made the equally impressive GRASS, which covered the migration of the Bakhtiari tribe of Persia (now Iran).

Filmed entirely in the then still mysterious jungles of Siam (now Thailand), CHANG tells the story of one family's constant struggle for survival against the various wild animals that surround them including the "changs", which when translated means elephants. The story had to be flexible enough to allow for the integration of actual situations that might occur during filming.

It's been well documented that Cooper and Schoedsack, both of whom had a high regard for wildlife, were careful not to kill any animals except when human life was clearly endangered. The producers were especially helpful in capturing a notorious, man-eating tiger that was threatening the region. The government later reported that the work of Cooper and Schoedsack reduced by two thirds the number of deaths caused by tigers in the province of Nan.

The truly amazing thing about CHANG are the animals themselves, who figure as prominently as do the people. The dangers of the jungle are skilfully contrasted with funny moments involving children frolicking with monkeys, bear cubs and other little critters. As a documentary film, it didn't employ special effects nor were tame animals used at any time.

The genuine fearlesness of the filmmakers is evident in the breathtaking animal shots which were taken without the aid of a telephoto lens. All the photography was done at close range from camoflauged shelters and pits so that when a tiger lunges forward with its nose practically nudging the camera, it REALLY got that close.

The tour de force in CHANG is the great elephant stampede. Still considered to be one of the most exciting scenes of its type in cinema history, it was used as stock footage for many jungle films that followed. Its staging and editing style was copied in several Tarzan films as well.

One also sees in CHANG the genesis from which KING KONG spawned, since it served as a model of construction for the later adventure/fantasy epic.

The excellent audio commentary by historian Rudy Behlmer includes excerpts from Behlmer's 1965 interview with Cooper and adds greatly to our appreciation of the film.

If movies of this nature interest you, it just doesn't get any better than this. Educational as well as wholly entertaining, CHANG delivers them both in the best cinematic fashion.

any fans of "king kong" (the real one, not the retreads) will be interested in this earlier merian c cooper movie, set in the jungles of then-siam, where a family learns to deal with the forces of nature, most notably an invading herd of elephants. short and involving, and fascinating as an early docudrama. also there is an interesting new musical score by thai musicians fongnam that id be tempted to buy on cd. still tho the main reason to see this is as a precursor to the skull island sequences of 5 years later.

Unbelievable find! Did not know this film even existed until we watched a PBS broadcast about early film making. "Chang" is the pre-cursor to the original King Kong.

Eww. This film is apparently a classic of the silent era, a pioneering jungle film by Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack, the producers of the 1931 hit, "King Kong." Filmed in location in Siam, this chronicles the life of a Laotian farm family living deep in the forest, amid elephants, tigers, leopards and all sorts of other beasties. Unfortunately, the film's theme is man vs. nature, with a distinctly pro-human, triumphalist agenda. Thus, while this is a technically well constructed work of art, it also basically amounts to a glorified animal snuff film, with villagers hunting and shooting large cats, snakes, monitor lizards, bears, elephants (the "chang" of the film's title...) and anything else on hoof, wing or belly that they could line up in front of the camera. And I don't mean fake-action shooting them -- these animals are really being shot and burned and speared and killed in front of our eyes. It's gross. As the animals yelp with anger and surprise, they are hounded and cut down in front of our eyes, as the silent-film placards crack out little one-liner "gag" captions, like, "Go Get 'Em, Fellas...!" If you have any empathy at all for the animals, this movie is simply unbearable to watch, steeped in the exploitative anti-nature ethos of the 19th Century... It's really a bummer.