Kundun Kundun

The Tibetans refer to the Dalai Lama as 'Kundun', which means 'The Presence'. He was forced to escape from his native home, Tibet, when communist China invaded and enforced an oppressive regime upon the peaceful nation of Tibet. The Dalai Lama escaped to India in 1959 and has been living in exile in Dharamsala ever since.

Tenzin Thuthob Tsarong Tencho Gyalpo Tsewang Migyur Khangsar Gyurme Tethong

drama

134 mins   More details at IMDb / TMDb

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  • Daylen Yang

    Review by Daylen Yang ★

    The film is rather uninteresting, spending two long hours portraying what seems to be an apathetic and indecisive Dalai Lama flee to India. One could watch this film at 2x speed and still fall asleep.

  • tipsfromchip

    Review by tipsfromchip ★★½

    Great cinematography, but that's about it for reasons to watch this. Not a bad movie, but not a particularly good one, either.

  • Arnold Furious

    Review by Arnold Furious ★★★

    I'm rather surprised that I've never seen Kundun, until today. For starters I'm a Martin Scorsese completist. I've seen all of his features, apart from this. My favourite movie is Goodfellas. Also 1997 was a year I spent virtually living in the cinema. I saw more movies at the cinema in 1997 than almost the entire rest of my life combined. At the time Kundun just didn't interest me. Scorsese has always been at his best on the front line, in the streets, in the gutter. Kundun is a spiritual journey and biopic. This is not traditionally Scorsese territory. His weakest films, Aviator springs to mind, come from attempting overlong biopics. Kundun is a visually stunning film and Scorsese's camera…

  • vgeorgie

    Review by vgeorgie ★★★★

    A real stretch for Scorsese. As expected, the craft behind the camera is top notch. Minor Scorsese but still a fully accomplished film.

  • David Matias

    Review by David Matias

    would love to see a Criterion blu-ray of this

  • jsjirn

    Review by jsjirn ★★★½

    The sequence that builds up to the Dalai Lama's escape to India is worth the proverbial price of admission.

  • Max Kruse

    Review by Max Kruse ★★★½

    quite good but a bit sketchy ... great acting, intense atmosphere, huge pictures

  • DER Schmidt

    Review by DER Schmidt ★★★★

    Ein beeindruckender Film über das Leben des 14. Dalai Lama.

  • Aaron T. Rex

    Review by Aaron T. Rex ★★★½

    Definitely not a bad film and Scorsese brings some great visuals, but overall it didn't interest me very much and it's definitely not very engaging. It's cool to see different sides of Scorsese. Probably my favourite director.