Movie Thoughts: The Tiger's Nest (2022)

• Released: October 13, 2022
• Directed by: Brando Quilici
• Running time: 1 h 34 min
• Rating 3.5/5

Synopsis

A troubled orphan boy named Balmani runs away from the orphanage to try and find the Tiger's Nest monastery his mother always used to talk about, which is located high in the Himalayas. On his way he rescues a Bengal tiger cub, whom he names Mutki, from poachers. The two journey together from then on, however the lead poacher is out for revenge and wants his tiger back, chasing down both Balmani and Mukti all the way.

My Thoughts

Cute movie. This was a random impulse-buy of mine I found in a German Saturn store. It looked interesting and I've been looking for new movies to watch and review anyways so...this made for a good candidate since I quite often tackle animal movies. I knew nothing about this movie going in, heck I didn't even know it existed until I saw the DVD at the store, so I went in completely blind.

And I was pleasantly surprised. The movie gets very low ratings on IMDb (not that I usually care about that kind of thing) but this is definitely an occasion where I have to disagree. It's not a flawless movie, it's of course a bit simplistic and predictable, with this whole "save the exotic pet from the poacher and return it to the wild"-plot-line, but it was still neatly executed.

I mostly liked Balmani's arc in this movie, again it's not the most original but definitely decently executed, and his actor does a good job, too. Balmani starts out the movie feeling incredibly lonely after the recent passing of his mother. He is in a rather large orphanage, but he can't (and won't) really connect with anyone and is even bullied. An accidentally hurtful remark from Hannah, the woman running the orphanage, especially puts him off, this causes him to finally pack up his things and hit the road. 

Things go down, and like mentioned in the synopsis he ends up rather sporadically rescuing a tiger cub from a poacher's cage, relating to the poor thing because its mother has also recently died, being killed by the poacher himself. At first he just briefly takes the tiger with him to a safe spot and tries to set it free there, but obviously a lone tiger cub cannot survive on its own, plus the animal has already bonded with Balmani, so they decide to go together from that point on, and Balmani names her Mukti. Their long journey ensues, and over the course of it we see them bond and especially Balmani really starts to feel happy again after being really down since the passing of his mother. He also finally opens up to new relationships thanks to Mukti, making many friends and allies across his journey who all help him in some way or another.

A long journey and defeating the poacher later, Balmani and Mukti finally arrive at the Tiger's Nest, where one of the monks knows a local tiger mother with cubs who might be willing to take in Mukti. Around this time, Balmani is also re-united with Hannah and forgives her. They travel to the territory of the tiger mother and her cubs (on a safe distance) and Balmani finally sets Mukti free. At first the young tigress is a little reluctant, but eventually she ends up vanishing into the Himalayas with her newfound family. Balmani returns to the orphanage with Hannah and is finally happy again, feeling fulfilled after his epic journey.

I know I just recited most of the movie, but I just really like Balmani's arc. Seeing him be so closed off and depressed after the loss of his only family, only for him to slowly open up to Mukti, and for him to then finally let others in again over the course of his journey, making a lot of friendships and also finally accepting Hannah as his new guardian. Maybe a bit of a cliché arc, but it's executed quite well if you ask me and just wholesome to see.

The rest of the movie is mostly just decent. The whole subplot with the poachers chasing down Balmani and Mukti is of course rather predictable and they didn't really do anything new with it. I was glad to see that one of the main poacher's underlings (who also happens to work for Hannah) had an arc of standing up to his superior in favor of saving Balmani. He was initially a rather selfish character but he had some nice growth as well.

As for the bond between Balmani and Mukti, it was fine. Like I said before, I do really like how his bond with Mukti does change Balmani for the better and finally make him happy again, but their bond also isn't that unique from most movies of this type where a child bonds with an exotic animal. They're just really close buddies and not that much unique is done with it, but at the same time I do really like how this got Balmani's arc started. 

Plus I appreciate that they actually had Mukti return to the wild with her own kind in the end and didn't have her stay at the monastery, or just left her in the wild to fend for herself with no new maternal figure to teach her. Remember, Mukti has been fed by Balmani for most of the journey, which is implied to have taken a few months, so she wouldn't know how to survive in the wild if they just left her there. So them finding her a new family who can properly teach her how to be a tiger was nice, rather than having her stay as a captive animal or just flat out releasing her with no one to train her.

Overall not a fantastic movie, but it definitely has a few good elements. Predictable, sure, but the neat character arc of Balmani and the pretty epic journey with nice scenery was enough for me to give it a good rating.