LIFE OF PI [2012] [3 Disc Collector’s Edition] [3D Blu-ray + DVD Digital Copy] The Next AVATAR! A Visual Miracle! A Stunning Masterpiece!

Embark on the adventure of a lifetime in this visual masterpiece from Oscar Award® winner Ang Lee Director of ‘Brokeback Mountain’ [2005]and based on the best-selling novel “Life of Pi” by Yann Martel. After a cataclysmic shipwreck, young Pi Patel finds himself stranded on a lifeboat with the only other survivor a ferocious Bengal tiger named Richard Parker. Bound by the need to survive, the two are cast on an epic journey that must be seen to be believed.

FILM FACT: ‘LIFE OF PI’ emerged as a critical and commercial success, earning over US$609 million worldwide. It was nominated for three Golden Globe® Awards which included the Best Picture for Drama and the Best Director and won the Golden Globe® Awards for Best Original Score. At the 85th Academy Awards® it had eleven nominations, including Best Picture, and won four, including Best Director for Ang Lee.

Cast: Gautam Belur, Ayush Tandon, Suraj Sharma, Irrfan Khan, Rafe Spall, Tabu, Adil Hussain, Ayan Khan, Mohamed Abbas, Vibish Sivakumar, Gérard Depardieu, Po-Chieh Wang, Shravanthi Sainath, Andrea Di Stefano and Elie Alouf

Director: Ang Lee

Producers: Ang Lee, David Womark and Gil Netter

Screenplay: David Magee

Composer: Mychael Danna

Cinematography: Claudio Miranda

Video Resolution: 1080p

Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1

Running Time: 185 minutes

Region: Region A/1

Number of discs: 3

Studio: 20th Century Fox

Andrew’s 3D Blu-ray Review: Director Ang Lee brings Yann Martel's “unfilmable” Booker Prize-winning novel ‘LIFE OF PI’ to the screen with dazzling effect. Suraj Sharma stars as “Pi” Patel, a 16 year-old zookeeper's son from Pondicherry, who finds himself stranded on a small boat in the Pacific Ocean in the company of a Bengal tiger following the shipwreck of the freighter on which he and his family were sailing for Canada. Over the course of several months Pi manages to survive on the meagre supplies of food and water he finds on the boat, and also takes up fishing, while in his half-delirious state he muses on various aspects of animal behaviour, religion and the meaning of life.

The Taiwan-born Ang Lee rapidly established himself in the 1990s as one of the world's most versatile film-makers, moving on from the trilogy of movies about Chinese families that made his name to Jane Austen's England ‘Sense and Sensibility’ and Richard Nixon's America ‘The Ice Storm.’ He adopts different styles to fit his new subjects, and while there are certain recurrent themes, among them the disruption of families and young people facing moral and physical challenges, there are no obsessive concerns of the sort once considered a necessity for auteurs. He has a fastidious eye for a great image but he also has a concern for language.

His stunning magnificent 3D film is adapted from the Yann Martel's Booker prize-winning novel “Life of Pi” which was finally adapted for screenplay by the American writer David Magee, whose previous credits were films set in England during the first half of the 20th century, ‘Finding Neverland’ and ‘Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day.’ From its opening scene of animals and birds strutting and preening themselves in a sunlit zoo to the final credits of fish and nautical objects shimmering beneath the sea, the movie has a sense of the mysterious, the magical. This effect is compounded by the hallucinatory 3D, which is awesome, compared to when I went to the cinema to see it in 3D and I was not very impressed, where this 3D Blu-ray is out of this world and is so lifelike seeing via the 3D Blu-ray.

The form of the film is a story within a story within a story. An unnamed Canadian author whom we assume to be Yann Martel himself [Rafe Spall] who I thought had a most aggravating Canadian accent and why couldn’t they have got a Canadian actor to do this part? Anyway we find Rafe Spall with the adult “Pi” Patel [Irrfan Khan] in his Montreal home, who has a story that will make you believe in God. Piscine Molitor Patel [Irrfan Khan], a philosophy teacher and he tells the curious story of his own extraordinary life, beginning as the son of a zookeeper in Pondicherry, the French enclave in India that wasn't ceded until 1954.

The film's two central characters both obtained their names by comic accident. The deeply serious Piscine (played by Gautam Belur at five, Ayush Tandon at 12 and Suraj Sharma at 16) was named after an uncle's favourite swimming pool, the Piscine Molitor in Paris, but changed his name to the Greek letter and numinous number Pi after fellow schoolboys made jokes about constantly going to the toilet. He later became fascinated by a Bengal tiger in the zoo caught by the English hunter Richard Parker who called him Thirsty. On delivery to the zoo their names were accidently reversed and the tiger became Richard Parker. Was this fate or by chance?

Growing up, the ever curious “Pi” Patel becomes attracted to religion and the meaning of life, a spiritual journey that the film treats with a respectful wit as the boy rejects his father's rationalism and creates a personal amalgam of Hinduism, Christianity and Islam. His faith is tested as an adolescent when his father is forced to give up the family zoo, where “Pi” Patel realises he's been as much a captive as the animals themselves. A Japanese freighter becomes a temporary ark on which the Patel family take the animals to be sold in Canada. But it's struck by a storm as dramatic as anything ever put on the screen, and “Pi” Patel becomes a combination of Noah, Crusoe, Prospero and Job. Alone above the Mariana Trench, the deepest part of the Pacific, he's an orphan captaining a lifeboat with only a zebra, a hyena, a female orang-utan and the gigantic Bengal tiger Richard Parker for company.

This is a grand adventure on a totally epic scale, a survival story that takes up half the film. It's no Peaceable Kingdom like Edward Hicks's charming early 19th-century painting, where the lion sleeps with the lamb. This is a Darwinian place that “Pi” Patel must learn to command. Using state-of-the-art 3D and digitally created beasts, Ang Lee and his team of technicians make it utterly real and totally perfect, as they do with the totally mysterious island that briefly provides a dangerously seductive haven.

The long arduous journey had “Pi” Patel 227 days at sea which tested his whole physique, mental adaptation and faith, and Suraj Sharma makes “Pi” Patel 's spiritual journey as convincing as his nautical one. He confronts thirst and starvation, finds a modus vivendi with the fierce tiger, endures and wonders at a mighty storm, a squadron of flying fish, a humpbacked whale, a school of dolphins, a night illuminated by luminous jellyfish. This brave new world is observed by a young Chilean director of photography, appropriately named Claudio Miranda. The spectacular film does for water and the sea what ‘Lawrence of Arabia’ did for sand and desert, and one thinks of what Alfred Hitchock, who used 3D so imaginatively in his 1954 film of ‘Dial M For Murder,’ might have done on his wartime ‘Lifeboat’ had he been given such technical facilities.

‘LIFE OF PI’ is an exhilarating drama about the mysteries which light up our lives and have no rhyme or reason on their own; the faith that enables us to make a leap into the dark; the teachings of animals; the fierce and tranquil sides of nature; and the powerful instinct we all have for survival. This spiritually alluring film can bring you to a transformed appreciation for the baffling, curious, and inexplicable dimensions of life and the world around you. This poetic ‘LIFE OF PI’ concludes with a fascinating, deliberately prosaic coda that raises questions about the reality of what we've seen and confronts the teleological issues involved.

3D Blu-ray Video Quality – ‘LIFE OF PI’ is completely transformed into a finer, more immersive experience through the use of 3D. The sense of infinite depth in the horizon at sea is particularly superb, and underwater scenes take on a special magnificence with their openness and majesty in 3D especially when seen from underneath as fish and other creatures swim in different planes under the boat. The sense of space on that medium-sized lifeboat gains tremendously with the extra dimension added, and the scenes on Meerkat Island are likewise transformed into almost other-worldly experience stereoscopic images. As for the projections, they are wonderfully thought out from a hummingbird which flies before our eyes early on to sticks and poles which either protrude toward us or in point of view shots that seem to come from our own hands. In the flying fish scene, there’s a magnificent moment as the screen ratio widens when a fish hits something in the frame and then flops out in front of the letterbox frame seemingly at our feet. There is absolutely no crosstalk at all in fashioning this magnificent 3D achievement.

3D Blu-ray Audio Quality – The 7.1 DTS-HD Master Audio sound mix is all one could hope for in this kind of special effects extravaganza. It’s tremendously expressive throughout with the wide, wide soundstage playing host to a variety of split surrounds and putting us right in the middle of a couple of hellacious sea storms that will give your audio equipment a major workout. Richard Parker’s growls are wonderfully directional as he moves around the boat, and Mychael Danna’s Oscar-winning score gets the full surround experience. Dialogue is always completely understandable and has been placed in the centre channel.

First 3D Blu-ray Special Features and Extras: With this particular 3D Blu-ray, you can view the extras in either 3D or 2D.

Deleted Scenes: Anandi’s Second Dance [3D/2D] [2012] [1080p] [16:9] [1:44]; Time to Grow Up [3D/2D] [2012] [1080p] [16:9] [2:08]; Happy Birthday [3D/2D] [2012] [1080p] [1.85:1/16:9] [2:48]; Did I Say Something Wrong [3D/2D] [2012] [1080p] [16:9] [2:22] and Darkness [3D/2D] [2012] [1080p] [16:9] [4:37]

Special Feature: VFX Progression: Tsimtsum Sinking [Shot Indicator] [3D/2D] [2012] [1080p] [16:9] [12:40] I personally felt this particular extra went on far too long and was well over the top. Tsimtsum Sinking which show elements from two scenes in plate form (raw footage), with animation added, and the final product.

Special Feature: The Wave Tank [3D/2D] [2012] [1080p] [16:9] [2:10] Here you get to see how the tank was built, and you get to see all the technical wizardry on how the CGI was produced for the finished film.

Theatrical Trailer [3D/2D] [2012] [1080p] [16:9] [2:12]

Second Blu-ray Special Features and Extras:

Special Feature: Feature Documentaries: A Filmmakers Epic Journey: Part 1: Life of Pi: A Filmmakers Epic Journey [2012] [1080p] [16:9] [15:05]; Part 2: Suraj Sharman: Audition Footage [2012] [480i/1080p] [4:3/16:9] [16:30]; Part 3: A Tigers Tale [2012] [1080p] [16:9] [17:43] and Part 4: Illusion of 3D [2012] [1080p] [16:9] [14:26] I cannot recommend these 4 brilliant documentaries enough, as they are so brilliantly photographed and gives you so much information on all who was involved in this awesome project of Life of Pi. It details the four year trek to the finished film concentrating on comments from director Ang Lee, film editor Tim Squyres, screenwriter David Magee, and others. The documentary (divided into four sections which can be pulled up separately) covers the preproduction work, the casting of “Pi” Patel and the training regimen for Suraj Sharma, the filming schedules in Taiwan and India, the working with real tigers and the CG work with computer-generated animals, continuity difficulties, solving the difficulties of using the specially constructed wave tank, the use of 3D for the film, and its triumphant premiere at the New York Film Festival.

Special Feature: A Remarkable Journey [2012] [1080p] [16:9] [19:37] This is a fascinating look at all aspects of the CGI effects and you learn so much of what was involved. These set pieces elaborate preparations for the special effects work done first in computer pre-visualisation and then adding layer upon layer to get to the finished product. Ang Lee, Tim Squyres, special effects supervisor Jean-Martin Desmarais, among others, provide primary commentary.

Special Feature: Tiger, Tiger Burning Bright [2012] [1080p] [16:9] [19:35] Here is another fascinating insight into how they trained the Bengal tigers and their reaction towards "Pi" Patel [Suraj Sharma]. You also get to see the fascinating insight on how they were able to create the CGI tiger from the real Bengal tiger. It also discusses the extraordinary CG work that went into fashioning a photo-realistic tiger to play Richard Parker in the film, especially with lots of side-by-side comparisons between the real tiger used for reference in the lifeboat set with the computer-generated one that appears in the frame with actor Suraj Sharma.

Special Feature: Art Gallery [2012] [1080p] [7:28] The following section is composed of a series of still images. You can either select AUTO ADVANCE to launch the slide show, where images change every five seconds. But if you select MANUAL ADVANCE, you can step through the images individually. Press TOP MENU on your remote control to go back to the Top Menu. The art you get to view are by Joanna Bush; Haan Lee; Dawn Masi and Alex Rockman. You get to view a total of 90 images and the best of the bunch is by Joanna Bush, which are totally stunning.

Special Feature: Storyboards [2012] [1080p] [12:23] The following section is composed of a series of still images. You can either select AUTO ADVANCE to launch the slide show, where images change every five seconds. But if you select MANUAL ADVANCE, you can step through the images individually. Press TOP MENU on your remote control to go back to the Top Menu. There are 7 categories, which are as follows: Zoo Hospital; Ashram; Piscine Molitor; Floating festival; Cargo Hold; Underwater Fantasy and Mexican Beach.

The Blu-ray disc is “BD-Live” ready and contains one exclusive (and surprisingly important) feature not available on the Blu-ray disc: “The Importance of Storytelling” which details in 20 and 30 minutes of the adaptation of Yann Martel’s novel to the screen by screenwriter David Magee

Finally, after scoring four Academy Awards® ‘LIFE OF PI’ is attracting lots of attention on home video circuit, and it deserves it. While it may not be the life-changing experience that it wants to be, it is at least thought-provoking and sure to generate some post-viewing discussion, particularly if you watch it with others of differing worldviews. Besides that, it's simply gorgeous to behold and probably the best adaptation we could've asked for from a book previously considered as stated earlier that is was deemed "unfilmable." 20th Century Fox's Blu-ray release does justice to the film's eye-candy visuals, particularly if you go for the stunning awesome 3D version. Ang Lee’s ‘LIFE OF PI’ was deservedly celebrated as one of the 2012’s best film. The reference quality video images and the stunning audio experience, plus an amazing excellent array of bonus material, sure makes it a clear choice for you to purchase this 3 Disc Collector’s Edition. Very Highly Recommended!

Andrew C. Miller – Your Ultimate No.1 Film Aficionado
Le Cinema Paradiso
United Kingdom

This film is absolutely brilliant simply in witnessing it on the screen before you (e.g., with the sound turned off), provided it is being broadcast from a good quality (the higher the resoluttion the better) HD TV. But somehow the film's true beauty is even more implicit in the message is it brings to us--an extremely critical lesson about how we must go about altering our consciousness so as to live our live's so as to restore ourselves to the absolute perfection, beauty, and infinite power and potential to create and manifest all that our heart's desire--but not form a greedy, ego-based expression of desire--rather, desire that flows from the within deepest the deepest reaches of our hearts and souls to manifest our greatest potential of the expression of each perfect moment, as well as the culmination of, our experience on this human journey. And in so doing live we ultimately come to perpetually dwell within a state of consciousness that is ever-evolving, ever growing, and thereby ever more optimizing our quality of life.

Now just what is this profound lesson, and how could it be that the vast majority of Earth dwellers have forgotten who it is that we truly are, and thus have become thrououghly disempowered and consciously dwell in a chaotic never-never land? This is an essential and primary truth for us at this point--not only that we continue our existence perpetual beings of Light, but at this time our Spirit is encased in what we refer to as a human body. And as such, we must not only attend to the nurturing and developing of our spiritual beingness, but we must also attend to the physical, mental, and emotional energies of the human elements of our beingness to truly attain health and wellness while residing on Mother Earth.

But these days we are taught crazed, egomaniacal, greedy, possessive, and self-seeking notions about how we should live our lives. Our Spirit essence, nor even the requirements for sustaining the health and wellness of our physical bodies, rarely enter into our conscious awareness, where all of these elements should be from and center. Instead, most of us now live with a consciousness driven by the most elemental remnants of our monkey brains, with very contorted notions of what truly matters in life or which afford us with much of anything in the potential of our self-expression and optimal quality of loves.

The latter is achieved through the merging of the Spirit-based energies of our beingness into these spectacular and miraculous devices. And this is clearly how we are born even unto this day, each of us with a spirit-centered consciousness, the energies of which blossom and explode from any infant--we can see it in their eyes, we can sense it in their expression, we can feel it flowing from their beingness when we touch and hold them.

Unfortunately, it appears to have become our societies primary child-rearing function to cause our children to unlearn the energies and the qualities thereof we are all born with, and in its place we teach them these truly bizarre concepts of what it is our children should seek in life and what it is they should strive for. In fact what we teach, and the seem being what our society reinforces, are extremely warped and downright crazed notions of that life is truly about, about their infinite potential inherent in the free choice that Spirit grants us, and how each and every one of us are capable of creating the most spectacular reality we can possibly envision with our lives, and even more so. And that in so doing we live the most perfect, optimal quality of lives in total health and wellness at all times, and that in so doing we will also be gifting the world with the greatest gifts we have to offer it.

So as I was saying, the message of the film, is in revealing the essential experience we all must now process our lives through so as to restore our unity with our spiritual beingness, and from that reunification, that relearning process, to unveil the infinite hope and possibility that lie within us when we first set foot upon this Earth. And this process of unlearning, as the film so elegantly portrays, is only made possible by a powerful surrender; oftentimes surrender upon surrender until the beast within is fully released--which is a letting go of the egotistical attachments we have made that have completely distorted our world view and the infinite and perfect ways that way can experience and create ever more beauty in our world.

Yet as the film portrays, this process of surrender, of effecting a full and complete release of all that it is we are led to believe is of significance than stems from an ego-based existence, or ego-centered consciousness, can present as the greatest challenge of our lives in breaking through this deeply engrained mind/body mode of beingness. For one must bring forth every ounce of energy within their entire beingness to literally break down the walls that so severely restrict us from becoming who we were meant to be. For over time, these walls typically grow so thick and heavy, securing themselves in seemingly impenetrable ways through endless strings of tentacles that have grown deeply into every fiber of our beingness.

However, nothing in life comes close to the miraculous new world that awaits us when we arise to the level of courage it takes to effect this release. And it is only achieved through an unwavering focus, coupled with relentless energy, oftentimes seeming t require more energy than we have to give, that can effectively cause these chains that bind us to shatter, and this to be truly set free to be and become all that our heart's desire, and all that the world so longs to receive from us to release it from its suffering, and/r otherwise facilitate its healing processes.

Fran Koch
frankoch1@me.com

We don’t use blue rays anymore, just know this is a great movie in an impressive format.

Very much enjoyed this one. It's very sad but so well made, and the CGI is incredible. I'd love to know how many hours went into the tiger... it looks almost 100% real which is a feat even in the last decade.

The author, not yet 40 (amazingly) when he wrote the book, has been quoted as saying:

"Suddenly, my mind was exploding with ideas. I could hardly keep up with them. In jubilant minutes whole portions of the novel emerged fully formed: the lifeboat, the animals, the intermingling of the religious and the zoological, the parallel stories. Where did that moment of inspiration come from? Why did I think that religion and zoology would make a good mix? ...I could give approximate answers. That India, where there are so many animals and religions, lent itself to such a story. That tensions simmering just below my level of consciousness were probably feverishly pushing me to come up with a story. But in truth I don't know. It just happened."

"It just happened...." the rendering of raw life into something far more profound, something universal, a tale known by heart by an unfortunate number of souls who have experienced a "shipwreck"; and, a morality tale, one that can transcend the obvious carnal horror and touch upon that which is beyond our experience, that in which our experience has its being, and its purpose.

What is a shipwreck? One is journeying toward something, with hope, and the vicissitudes of life foul the journey. When the "ship" goes down, everything is lost. One is left in a hostile world surrounded by the unknown and the horizon disappears twice a day, dawn and dusk, into itself. There are no markers, there are no maps.

A tragedy for which there are no words, a loss so deep that it rivals the power of nature, an ocean of loss. I know this by heart. I, too, now live with a very large and very dangerous animal. This is a fight for survival, it is no game, it is no fairy tale. I feed the beast as best I can and try to avoid it. Ultimately, I must learn about it and it must - in some way - co-exist with me. Together, uncomfortable companions, we seek safe harbor. Safe harbor is far from safe, it is self-consuming. The only safety is in not looking for it; the only path is back into the journey, the beast and I, toward life. Can we find it, can we survive? I will not be consumed by the beast, but neither can I consume it. We are together now, whatever the future.

Shall I tell my story in its brutal reality, tearing into the consciousness and sensitivities of those who hear it? I learn that this is not a prudent choice. And so I tell it in this way, as I have said, the beast and I. Everyone fears the beast, do they not? Yet, not everyone travels with one, and so the story can be safely told.

There is magic and even beauty in even the worst horror. Nothing is without purpose; this is part of the lesson.

You cannot tame the beast. There must be a partnership, a reluctant partnership. You may find comfort in the oddest of places and when least expected but, ultimately, you must continue the journey. Or die trying.

"Even when God seemed to have abandoned me, He was watching. Even when He seemed indifferent to my suffering, He was watching. And when I was beyond all hope of saving, He gave me rest, and gave me a sign to continue my journey."

Evil and horror are real, but they are encapsulated, they are quarantined from the essential element of soul. The beast can enter our lives; we can succumb to the horror and be eaten alive, by our own lack of hope and loss of faith. Or we can arrive at a place where we, and our beast, co-exist. I am not yet at the place where my beast leaves me. Perhaps I never will be. There is something in us that wants to hold onto the beast. And we are left with two stories: the horror or the hope.

"Can I ask you something?"
"Of course."
"I've told you two stories about what happened out on the ocean. Neither explains what caused the sinking of the ship and no one can prove which story is true and which is not. In both stories, the ship sinks, my family dies, and I survive."
"True."
"So which story do you prefer?"
"The one with the tiger, that's the better story."
"Thank you. And so it goes with God."

Go in peace.

An enchanting journey of survival and faith.

Ang Lee's Life of Pi (2012) takes you across the Pacific Ocean from India to Mexico and ends in Canada. It's an epic of breathtaking aquatic visuals from visionary director Ang Lee. Lee cleverly uses aspect ratio to fill up a screen full of seawater, stretch the image to allow flying fish to leap out at the viewer, and widen your horizons with a mesmerizing whale sequence. The whale encounter is definitely my favorite scene in Life of Pi.

Lee's CGI team really outdid Avatar in taking you somewhere. The deep blues and brights yellows really pop in Life of Pi. The ocean looks real as does the intricately detailed tiger. You see plenty of real animals in the beginning of Life of Pi and while you can slightly tell the tiger, Richard Parker, is fake, you are never pulled out of the film. The tiger moves and feels like a realistic animal struggling to survive just like the boy.

Suraj Sharma is a pretty good actor for making you care about him being lost at sea for a majority of the film. He is compelling as you see the fear stemmed inside him through his shocked eyes. Each movement feels deliberate from Sharma. Much like Lee's slower deliberate pace, Sharma makes you feel like you are stuck at sea with him.

I most appreciate Irrfan Khan as the narrator and the adult Pi. He is the moral and philosophical heart of Life of Pi. He presents you his character Pi's life story with a grounded emotional delivery. You are immediately invested in his life. While not all of the movie will hit you hard, Khan's portions always grip me with his serious and spiritual style. He poses an unforgettable question at the end of the film.

Rafe Spall is also a good framed narrative character. His author seeking a story gives the audience a way into the strange and magical tale being told to him.

Tabu is great as the mother of Pi, but she gets very little to do or say. Lee certainly underused her. I like Pi's father too, but some of the CGI around him early on looked pretty fake. You only ever notice the CGI when it's a stray fish that's too shiny or a person's face aged a certain amount of years. Lastly, Gerard Depardieu is in Life of Pi as a racist cook for some reason. He's terrible and bland like a parody of himself. No idea why Ang Lee wasted screen time on him. I think Lee needed to cut down Life of Pi by maybe 10 minutes or so as it does feel too long. I was captivated by the story and visuals the entire run-time, but it's slow pace wears you down after a bit.

Overall, Life of Pi is unlike other survival films. It's more emotional and beautiful than Castaway. It captures more grand natural storms than The Perfect Storm. It rivals the exotic spirit of The Adventures of Tintin. I'd also say Life of Pi took some of Scorsese's magical fantasy tone and style from Hugo and brought it a new life. Life of Pi is therefore similar to many movies, but a refreshing experience all its own. The visual stimulation is sure to entertain most audiences unless you just don't like tigers.

This film is excellent , actually totally amazing. The writer of the book is pure genius. Not high fantasy , this story is real. Your heart will go out to the beautiful Bengal tiger.
Great to watch, but probably too scary for younger children.
Highly recommend !

Gorgeous cinematography and beautiful musical score. One of my favorite movies of all time.