The Jungle Book (1994 film)
Encyclopedia
Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book is a 1994 Disney
film based on the Mowgli
stories in The Jungle Book
and The Second Jungle Book
by Rudyard Kipling
, and is a live-action remake of the 1967 film The Jungle Book
. The film stars Jason Scott Lee as Mowgli and Cary Elwes
as his main adversary. It was directed by Stephen Sommers
. The original music score
was composed by Basil Poledouris
.
, Mowgli is the five-year-old son of Nathoo, a wilderness guide, with whom he accompanies on a tour in the jungles of their native India
and has Grey Brother as a pet wolf cub. Mowgli becomes close friends with a British
girl named Katherine Anne "Kitty" Brydon, whose father, Colonel Geoffrey Brydon, commissioned the journey. When Shere Khan
goes on a rampage in the camp and kills Mowgli's father and one of Colonel Brydon's soldiers, the boy and the wolf are lost in the confusion and are left to fend for themselves. Bagheera
finds and leads them to the wolf pack. Mowgli is befriended by the animals of the jungle including Baloo
the bear cub, and they develop an unspoken bond as the boy learns to survive. Twenty years later, the Bandar-log
steal the bracelet Kitty gave Mowgli. He follows them to the ruins of an overgrown and lost city, deep in the jungle, where he meets King Louie
the orangutan, who he follows in to a chamber full of vast treasure. Louie wants to add the bracelet to the treasure but agrees to give it back if Mowgli fights the great serpent Kaa
and wins. Mowgli manages to defeat Kaa with a jeweled dagger he found in the temple. Kaa flees, but he is not killed. Louie returns Mowgli the bracelet, proclaiming him a hero.
A little later, Mowgli once again encounters Kitty, who has returned to India with her father and her arrogant and deceitful suitor, Captain William Boone. Kitty and Mowgli recognize each other, and while his powers of speech are rusty, Kitty reintroduces Mowgli to civilization
with the help of Dr. Julius Plumford and Mowgli introduces Kitty to his friends in the jungle. However, after spending most of his life in the jungle, Mowgli does not feel at home among the rude and snobbish aristocrats who are friends with Kitty's family. He falls in love with Kitty, but he concedes to his rival for her affections, believing that he does not belong in her world.
Meanwhile, Boone and his men find the jewelled dagger Mowgli used against Kaa, and they hatch a plan to get Mowgli to lead them to the treasure in Monkey City. After Mowgli refuses, they attempt to capture him but fail thanks to Baloo's intervention. Baloo is shot in the process, and Mowgli rushes back to Kitty's home to find Dr. Plumford; however, the butler informs him that Kitty and Plumford are going back to England. Mowgli finds Kitty and the others just as Boone's men, led by Buldeo and Tabaqui (two of Boone's porters), ambush and attack them. Geoffrey is shot and wounded, and abducted along with Kitty. Mowgli saves Plumford and asks him to return the favour by helping Baloo. Mowgli catches up with Boone's men (which now includes two subordinates of his, Lt. Wilkins and Sgt. Harley) and agrees to escort them to Monkey City in exchange for Kitty and Geoffrey's safety.
The next morning, while the troupe is still searching for the treasure, Harley catches Mowgli escaping and gives chase, but falls into a pond of quicksand
and drowns despite Wilkins' pitiful attempt to rescue him. Later, Mowgli saves the wounded Geoffrey and has an elephant take him back to the village and to safety.
As the expedition continues, Tabaqui violently confronts Mowgli atop a cliff with the intent of killing him, but Mowgli kicks him, knocking Tabaqui off his balance and causing him to plummet from the cliff edge. Boone orders his men to kill Mowgli, but Mowgli leaps off the cliff and lands safely in the nearby water.
As the group reach Monkey City, Wilkins encounters Shere Khan, who subsequently chases him down. As Kitty, Boone and Buldeo enter the ancient ruins, followed by Mowgli, Buldeo pursues Mowgli into a crypt to kill him, but accidentally sets off a booby trap that buries him alive.
In the end, only Mowgli, Kitty and Boone reach the treasure alive. Boone, no longer needing Mowgli, attempts to kill him, but the two fight and Boone loses. Mowgli and Kitty flee the temple, as Boone starts to pocket all the gold he can find. Kaa suddenly appears and scares Boone into falling into the water below them. While Boone is underwater, he notices a few skeletons of people whom Kaa had possibly killed in the past. Boone joins them when he is bitten and killed by Kaa.
Shere Khan confronts Mowgli and Kitty as they exit. Khan still does not trust Mowgli, and the two stare at each other a long time before Khan is stared down and leaves in submission - the fulfillment of a dream Mowgli had in the beginning of the story, where he, already a 'half-tiger' in spirit, would stare Shere Khan eye to eye and become a 'whole tiger', Khan recognising in Mowgli another creature of the jungle. Mowgli and Kitty reunite with their friends and family, including Geoffrey and Baloo, both cured by Plumford. Kitty and Mowgli are now together. They share a passionate kiss by a waterfall.
Kaa is portrayed by both a computer-generated and a real anaconda
. Other trained animals were monkey
s, elephant
s, camel
, horse
s, zebu
, and wolves.
They do not talk like in the 1967 animated version.
(Bombay and Jodhpur
) and parts of the southern United States (South Carolina
and Tennessee
).
based on 18 votes.
Critic Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun Times chided the film for not staying true to Kipling's work, although his name remains in the title. He said the film "has so little connection to Rudyard Kipling or his classic book that the title is beyond explanation."He goes on to say that it is a good film, but does not fit its target audience; some "scenes are unsuitable for small children, and the 'PG' rating is laughable."
Rita Kempley from The Washington Post was more favorable with the film, stating that "the narrative shifts from romance to adventure the way Cheetah used to hop from foot to foot, but Sommers nevertheless delivers a bully family picture."
The game follows the player in his/her quest to save the jungle. Soldiers have stolen King Louie's crown and the player must recover it to prevent the jungle from losing its magic. The player is aided by an Scotsman named Ilgwom ("Mowgli" spelled backwards) and his chimpanzee, Lahtee, while also guided by a spirit made from Mowgli's memories.
Walt Disney Pictures
Walt Disney Pictures is an American film studio owned by The Walt Disney Company. Walt Disney Pictures and Television, a subsidiary of the Walt Disney Studios and the main production company for live-action feature films within the Walt Disney Motion Pictures Group, based at the Walt Disney...
film based on the Mowgli
Mowgli
Mowgli is a fictional character from India who originally appeared in Rudyard Kipling's short story "In the Rukh" and then went on to become the most prominent and memorable character in his fantasies, The Jungle Book and The Second Jungle Book , which also featured stories about other...
stories in The Jungle Book
The Jungle Book
The Jungle Book is a collection of stories by British Nobel laureate Rudyard Kipling. The stories were first published in magazines in 1893–4. The original publications contain illustrations, some by Rudyard's father, John Lockwood Kipling. Kipling was born in India and spent the first six...
and The Second Jungle Book
The Second Jungle Book
The Second Jungle Book is a sequel to The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling. First published in 1895, it features five stories about Mowgli and three unrelated stories, all but one set in India, most of which Kipling wrote while living in Vermont...
by Rudyard Kipling
Rudyard Kipling
Joseph Rudyard Kipling was an English poet, short-story writer, and novelist chiefly remembered for his celebration of British imperialism, tales and poems of British soldiers in India, and his tales for children. Kipling received the 1907 Nobel Prize for Literature...
, and is a live-action remake of the 1967 film The Jungle Book
The Jungle Book (1967 film)
The Jungle Book is a 1967 American animated film produced by Walt Disney Animation Studios. Released on October 18, 1967, it is the 19th animated feature in the Walt Disney Animated Classics series. It was inspired by the stories about the feral child Mowgli from the book of the same name by...
. The film stars Jason Scott Lee as Mowgli and Cary Elwes
Cary Elwes
Ivan Simon Cary Elwes , known professionally as Cary Elwes, is an English actor. The son of Dominick Elwes and Tessa Georgina Kennedy, Elwes acted in off-Broadway plays during college and moved to the United States in the early 1980s. He is known for his role as Westley in the cult classic The...
as his main adversary. It was directed by Stephen Sommers
Stephen Sommers
Stephen Sommers is an American screenwriter and film director, best known for The Mummy and its sequel, The Mummy Returns. He also directed Disney's live action version of Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book, the action/horror film Van Helsing, and the 2009 film G.I...
. The original music score
Film score
A film score is original music written specifically to accompany a film, forming part of the film's soundtrack, which also usually includes dialogue and sound effects...
was composed by Basil Poledouris
Basil Poledouris
Vassilis Konstantinos "Basil" Poledouris was a Greek-American music composer who concentrated on the scores for films and television shows...
.
Plot
During the Victorian periodVictorian era
The Victorian era of British history was the period of Queen Victoria's reign from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. It was a long period of peace, prosperity, refined sensibilities and national self-confidence...
, Mowgli is the five-year-old son of Nathoo, a wilderness guide, with whom he accompanies on a tour in the jungles of their native India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
and has Grey Brother as a pet wolf cub. Mowgli becomes close friends with a British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
girl named Katherine Anne "Kitty" Brydon, whose father, Colonel Geoffrey Brydon, commissioned the journey. When Shere Khan
Shere Khan
Shere Khan is a fictional tiger of the Indian jungle. He is the chief antagonist in two of Rudyard Kipling's Jungle Book stories featuring Mowgli. Shere Khan is named after an Afghan Prince Kipling encountered on his trips to Afghanistan...
goes on a rampage in the camp and kills Mowgli's father and one of Colonel Brydon's soldiers, the boy and the wolf are lost in the confusion and are left to fend for themselves. Bagheera
Bagheera
Bagheera the black-toned Indian Leopard is an animal fictional character in Rudyard Kipling's Mowgli stories in The Jungle Book and The Second Jungle Book...
finds and leads them to the wolf pack. Mowgli is befriended by the animals of the jungle including Baloo
Baloo
Baloo is the fictional bear featured in Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book from 1894 and The Second Jungle Book from 1895.-Name and species:He is described in Kipling's work as "the sleepy brown bear"...
the bear cub, and they develop an unspoken bond as the boy learns to survive. Twenty years later, the Bandar-log
Bandar-log
Bandar-log , a term used in Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book to describe monkeys - specifically, Langur monkeys.In Hindi, Bandar means 'monkey' and log means 'people'. The Bandar-log feature most prominently in the story "Kaa's Hunting", where their scatterbrained anarchy causes them to be treated...
steal the bracelet Kitty gave Mowgli. He follows them to the ruins of an overgrown and lost city, deep in the jungle, where he meets King Louie
King Louie
King Louie is a fictional orangutan who kidnaps Mowgli in Disney's 1967 animated musical adaptation of The Jungle Book. He is voiced by Louis Prima in the film and therefore has his same mannerisms...
the orangutan, who he follows in to a chamber full of vast treasure. Louie wants to add the bracelet to the treasure but agrees to give it back if Mowgli fights the great serpent Kaa
Kaa
Kaa is a fictional and exceptionally long Python molurus from the Mowgli stories written by Rudyard Kipling. Kaa is one of Mowgli's mentors and friends. He, Baloo and Bagheera sing for Mowgli "The Outsong" of the jungle. First introduced in the story "Kaa's Hunting" in The Jungle Book, Kaa is a...
and wins. Mowgli manages to defeat Kaa with a jeweled dagger he found in the temple. Kaa flees, but he is not killed. Louie returns Mowgli the bracelet, proclaiming him a hero.
A little later, Mowgli once again encounters Kitty, who has returned to India with her father and her arrogant and deceitful suitor, Captain William Boone. Kitty and Mowgli recognize each other, and while his powers of speech are rusty, Kitty reintroduces Mowgli to civilization
Civilization
Civilization is a sometimes controversial term that has been used in several related ways. Primarily, the term has been used to refer to the material and instrumental side of human cultures that are complex in terms of technology, science, and division of labor. Such civilizations are generally...
with the help of Dr. Julius Plumford and Mowgli introduces Kitty to his friends in the jungle. However, after spending most of his life in the jungle, Mowgli does not feel at home among the rude and snobbish aristocrats who are friends with Kitty's family. He falls in love with Kitty, but he concedes to his rival for her affections, believing that he does not belong in her world.
Meanwhile, Boone and his men find the jewelled dagger Mowgli used against Kaa, and they hatch a plan to get Mowgli to lead them to the treasure in Monkey City. After Mowgli refuses, they attempt to capture him but fail thanks to Baloo's intervention. Baloo is shot in the process, and Mowgli rushes back to Kitty's home to find Dr. Plumford; however, the butler informs him that Kitty and Plumford are going back to England. Mowgli finds Kitty and the others just as Boone's men, led by Buldeo and Tabaqui (two of Boone's porters), ambush and attack them. Geoffrey is shot and wounded, and abducted along with Kitty. Mowgli saves Plumford and asks him to return the favour by helping Baloo. Mowgli catches up with Boone's men (which now includes two subordinates of his, Lt. Wilkins and Sgt. Harley) and agrees to escort them to Monkey City in exchange for Kitty and Geoffrey's safety.
The next morning, while the troupe is still searching for the treasure, Harley catches Mowgli escaping and gives chase, but falls into a pond of quicksand
Quicksand
Quicksand is a colloid hydrogel consisting of fine granular matter , clay, and water.Water circulation underground can focus in an area with the optimal mixture of fine sands and other materials such as clay. The water moves up and then down slowly in a convection-like manner throughout a column...
and drowns despite Wilkins' pitiful attempt to rescue him. Later, Mowgli saves the wounded Geoffrey and has an elephant take him back to the village and to safety.
As the expedition continues, Tabaqui violently confronts Mowgli atop a cliff with the intent of killing him, but Mowgli kicks him, knocking Tabaqui off his balance and causing him to plummet from the cliff edge. Boone orders his men to kill Mowgli, but Mowgli leaps off the cliff and lands safely in the nearby water.
As the group reach Monkey City, Wilkins encounters Shere Khan, who subsequently chases him down. As Kitty, Boone and Buldeo enter the ancient ruins, followed by Mowgli, Buldeo pursues Mowgli into a crypt to kill him, but accidentally sets off a booby trap that buries him alive.
In the end, only Mowgli, Kitty and Boone reach the treasure alive. Boone, no longer needing Mowgli, attempts to kill him, but the two fight and Boone loses. Mowgli and Kitty flee the temple, as Boone starts to pocket all the gold he can find. Kaa suddenly appears and scares Boone into falling into the water below them. While Boone is underwater, he notices a few skeletons of people whom Kaa had possibly killed in the past. Boone joins them when he is bitten and killed by Kaa.
Shere Khan confronts Mowgli and Kitty as they exit. Khan still does not trust Mowgli, and the two stare at each other a long time before Khan is stared down and leaves in submission - the fulfillment of a dream Mowgli had in the beginning of the story, where he, already a 'half-tiger' in spirit, would stare Shere Khan eye to eye and become a 'whole tiger', Khan recognising in Mowgli another creature of the jungle. Mowgli and Kitty reunite with their friends and family, including Geoffrey and Baloo, both cured by Plumford. Kitty and Mowgli are now together. They share a passionate kiss by a waterfall.
Main cast
- Jason Scott Lee - MowgliMowgliMowgli is a fictional character from India who originally appeared in Rudyard Kipling's short story "In the Rukh" and then went on to become the most prominent and memorable character in his fantasies, The Jungle Book and The Second Jungle Book , which also featured stories about other...
- Cary ElwesCary ElwesIvan Simon Cary Elwes , known professionally as Cary Elwes, is an English actor. The son of Dominick Elwes and Tessa Georgina Kennedy, Elwes acted in off-Broadway plays during college and moved to the United States in the early 1980s. He is known for his role as Westley in the cult classic The...
- Captain William Boone - Lena HeadeyLena HeadeyLena Headey is an English actress. Headey's performance in a one-off show when she was 17 caught the attention of a casting agent, who took a photo and asked her to audition and eventually she got a supporting role alongside Jeremy Irons and Ethan Hawke in the 1992 British drama film Waterland and...
- Katherine "Kitty" Brydon - Sam NeillSam NeillNigel John Dermot "Sam" Neill, DCNZM, OBE is a New Zealand actor. He is well known for his starring role as paleontologist Dr Alan Grant in Jurassic Park and Jurassic Park III....
- Colonel Geoffrey Brydon - John CleeseJohn CleeseJohn Marwood Cleese is an English actor, comedian, writer, and film producer. He achieved success at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and as a scriptwriter and performer on The Frost Report...
- Dr. Julius Plumford - Jason FlemyngJason FlemyngJason Iain Flemyng is an English actor. He is known for his film work, which has included roles in British films such as Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch , both for Guy Ritchie, as well as Hollywood productions such as Rob Roy along with the Alan Moore comic book adaptations From...
- Lt. John Wilkins - Ron Donachie - Sgt. Harley
- Sean Naegeli - Mowgli, age 5
- Joanna Wolff - Kitty Brydon, age 5
- Stefan Kalipha - Buldeo
- Anirudh Agarwal - Tabaqui
- Liza WalkerLiza WalkerLiza Walker is an English actress. She is the former girlfriend of 1990s pop star Chesney Hawkes.-Filmography:*El Sueno Del Mono Loco, 1990*Buddy's Song, 1990*Teenage Health Freak, 1991 TV Series*Century, 1993...
- Alice - Rachel Robertson - Rose
- Natalie Morse - Margareta
Trained animals
- BalooBalooBaloo is the fictional bear featured in Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book from 1894 and The Second Jungle Book from 1895.-Name and species:He is described in Kipling's work as "the sleepy brown bear"...
- Casey- A male black bear. - BagheeraBagheeraBagheera the black-toned Indian Leopard is an animal fictional character in Rudyard Kipling's Mowgli stories in The Jungle Book and The Second Jungle Book...
- Shadow- A male black leopardLeopardThe leopard , Panthera pardus, is a member of the Felidae family and the smallest of the four "big cats" in the genus Panthera, the other three being the tiger, lion, and jaguar. The leopard was once distributed across eastern and southern Asia and Africa, from Siberia to South Africa, but its...
. - Grey Brother - Shannon- A female grey wolf.
- King LouieKing LouieKing Louie is a fictional orangutan who kidnaps Mowgli in Disney's 1967 animated musical adaptation of The Jungle Book. He is voiced by Louis Prima in the film and therefore has his same mannerisms...
- Lowell- A male Bornean orangutanBornean OrangutanThe Bornean orangutan, Pongo pygmaeus, is a species of orangutan native to the island of Borneo. Together with the slightly smaller Sumatran orangutan, it belongs to the only genus of great apes native to Asia....
. - Shere KhanShere KhanShere Khan is a fictional tiger of the Indian jungle. He is the chief antagonist in two of Rudyard Kipling's Jungle Book stories featuring Mowgli. Shere Khan is named after an Afghan Prince Kipling encountered on his trips to Afghanistan...
- Bombay- A male Bengal tigerBengal TigerThe Bengal tiger is a tiger subspecies native to the Indian subcontinent that in 2010 has been classified as endangered by IUCN...
owned by Randy Miller.
Kaa is portrayed by both a computer-generated and a real anaconda
Anaconda
An anaconda is a large, non-venomous snake found in tropical South America. Although the name actually applies to a group of snakes, it is often used to refer only to one species in particular, the common or green anaconda, Eunectes murinus, which is one of the largest snakes in the world.Anaconda...
. Other trained animals were monkey
Monkey
A monkey is a primate, either an Old World monkey or a New World monkey. There are about 260 known living species of monkey. Many are arboreal, although there are species that live primarily on the ground, such as baboons. Monkeys are generally considered to be intelligent. Unlike apes, monkeys...
s, elephant
Elephant
Elephants are large land mammals in two extant genera of the family Elephantidae: Elephas and Loxodonta, with the third genus Mammuthus extinct...
s, camel
Camel
A camel is an even-toed ungulate within the genus Camelus, bearing distinctive fatty deposits known as humps on its back. There are two species of camels: the dromedary or Arabian camel has a single hump, and the bactrian has two humps. Dromedaries are native to the dry desert areas of West Asia,...
, horse
Horse
The horse is one of two extant subspecies of Equus ferus, or the wild horse. It is a single-hooved mammal belonging to the taxonomic family Equidae. The horse has evolved over the past 45 to 55 million years from a small multi-toed creature into the large, single-toed animal of today...
s, zebu
Zebu
Zebu , sometimes known as humped cattle, indicus cattle, Cebu or Brahmin cattle are a type of domestic cattle originating in South Asia, particularly the Indian subcontinent. They are characterised by a fatty hump on their shoulders, drooping ears and a large dewlap...
, and wolves.
They do not talk like in the 1967 animated version.
Filming
Filming took place in IndiaIndia
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
(Bombay and Jodhpur
Jodhpur
Jodhpur , is the second largest city in the Indian state of Rajasthan. It is located west from the state capital, Jaipur and from the city of Ajmer. It was formerly the seat of a princely state of the same name, the capital of the kingdom known as Marwar...
) and parts of the southern United States (South Carolina
South Carolina
South Carolina is a state in the Deep South of the United States that borders Georgia to the south, North Carolina to the north, and the Atlantic Ocean to the east. Originally part of the Province of Carolina, the Province of South Carolina was one of the 13 colonies that declared independence...
and Tennessee
Tennessee
Tennessee is a U.S. state located in the Southeastern United States. It has a population of 6,346,105, making it the nation's 17th-largest state by population, and covers , making it the 36th-largest by total land area...
).
Critical response
The film received a 95% fresh at Rotten TomatoesRotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...
based on 18 votes.
Critic Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun Times chided the film for not staying true to Kipling's work, although his name remains in the title. He said the film "has so little connection to Rudyard Kipling or his classic book that the title is beyond explanation."He goes on to say that it is a good film, but does not fit its target audience; some "scenes are unsuitable for small children, and the 'PG' rating is laughable."
Rita Kempley from The Washington Post was more favorable with the film, stating that "the narrative shifts from romance to adventure the way Cheetah used to hop from foot to foot, but Sommers nevertheless delivers a bully family picture."
Game
The movie was adaptated into a 1996 game, which includes clips from the film, while providing an original story and new characters.The game follows the player in his/her quest to save the jungle. Soldiers have stolen King Louie's crown and the player must recover it to prevent the jungle from losing its magic. The player is aided by an Scotsman named Ilgwom ("Mowgli" spelled backwards) and his chimpanzee, Lahtee, while also guided by a spirit made from Mowgli's memories.