Movie Review: Life of Pi

The other day I watched Life of Pi. It was an interesting movie that had a lot of funny moments and cute moments, but it touched home on a lot of points too.

But first, a shout out because the movie was filmed offshore of Taiwan, where I was born.

Warning. If you have not watched and would not like the movie spoiled please stop here.


The movie is revolved around Pi Patel, he is visited by a writer that is in search of the perfect story to write. Pi shares with him a story that he claimed would make him believe in God. Young Pi was happy with his life in India. He didn't believe in one God but in multiple Gods. Vishnu, Christ, and Allah. He felt each religion had truth to them. One day, his father decided that business was not great and wanted to move to Canada and sell their zoo animals abroad. His father took reference of Columbus on his journey to Canada, but Pi remarked that Columbia's original intent was to find India. On the freight ship, that was taking the family to Canada, one night, a storm hit that sank the ship. Pi was the sole human survivor along with a orangutan, a hyena, an injured zebra and a tiger. The hyena first kills the zebra and the orangutans out of hunger before being killed itself by the tiger. Together with the tiger, Pi remains shipwrecked on the pacific. They slowly learn to co-exist, helping each other survive.


They eventually come ashore on the coast of Mexico. However, as the tiger enters the jungle, it chose not to look back, as if the time spent together meant nothing to him. When asked by investigators what had happened. The story he told was unbelievable. At this point he offered them another story of four people surviving the shipwreck. The greedy cook, the injured sailor, the mother and himself. He told of how the cook killed the sailor and then the mother before he had to kill the cook because the cook had gone too far. Back to present where he asked the writer which story he believed, the writer chose to believe the first story claiming it was far more interesting.

As he finished off his story he left the writer, and myself in all honesty, an important lesson, which was that it is important to conclude things properly. Only then can you let go. Otherwise you are left with words you should have said but never said and your heart is heavy with remorse. This applies to so many things in my life. I keep wanting to hang on, which gets me emotional entangled. Even now, I can think of several instances where this is the case. Now there's nothing but to deal with the regrets and the what ifs.

What I liked the most and will keep in mind is when they were talking about religion. This hits home quite more than I think.

Pi Patel: religion is a house with many rooms.
Writer: but with no room for doubt?
Pi: Oh yes, a room on every floor.

It reminds me of the life I've had and how much I've believed but doubted too. It's natural for humans to doubt because we have sinned. That is why Adam and Eve sinned in the first place. Anyways, I felt the movie was a really touching movie to watch. Richard Parker was an adorable tiger and the graphics in the film was amazing. They made the ocean a very beautiful place. It's definitely a movie worth watching.

That's it for now. Until next time.

PS. Pictures in this post is not my own.

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 29, 2012 and is filed under ,,,,,. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response.

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