Two Brothers

                     Nearly the entire time I watched Two Brothers, I was certain I was not going to write about it.  The movie was just too sad.  I am a huge animal lover, and there were some parts of the movie that were too painful to watch.  It was not until the last few minutes that I decided that even though this movie was hard to watch, I had to write about it.         

                The main characters in this film are two tiger cubs.  They live a happy, playful life until men descend upon the deserted temple where the tiger cubs and their parents live.  The men, led by hunter Aidan McRory (Guy Pearce), are there to strip the temple of its art and beauty.  They do not know tigers live in the temple as well.  Once one of the adult tigers is discovered, McRory and his men go after it.  The mother tiger is able to escape with one of her cubs, but she cannot get back to save the other.  As the cub struggles to escape, the father tiger tries to protect it from the men who are invading the temple.  Sadly, the father tiger is killed.  When the men prepare to take the father tiger away, McRory discovers the cub all alone.  He cannot leave the cub, so McRory takes the cub with him and names it Kumal.

                It appears McRory has every intent of keeping Kumal, but he is arrested for looting and cannot take Kumal with him.  Kumal’s mother figures out where her cub is and tries to save him, but she is unsuccessful.  Then the decision is made to sell Kumal to the circus.  Again his mother tries to save Kumal, but she is unable to and Kumal goes off to become a circus performer.

             In the meantime, the other cub remains with his mother.  They stay together until a hunting party comes through their area.  Both fall into a trap and when they are set free, the mother hides her cub to keep him safe.  She ends up getting shot in the ear by one of the hunting party.  Everyone believes she is dead, but she scares the hunters by leaping up and running off.  Unfortunately, the mother cannot get back to her cub before he is discovered by a young boy, Raoul (Freddie Highmore).  He is the son of one of the men in the hunting party and takes the cub home to keep as a pet.  The cub is named Sangha and Raoul loves him dearly.  Sangha plays with Raoul everywhere, including under the dining room table during dinner, and sleeps in bed with him at night.  The cub especially likes to be on the toy shelf with Raoul’s stuffed animals.

                Everything is going smoothly for Sangha except for the family dog.  The dog does not like Sangha and barks and him all the time.  Attempts are made to keep the two away from each other, but one day it does not work and the dog chases Sangha around the house.  When Sangha is cornered, he attacks in self-defense.  The dog is not killed, but Sangha is sent off to a private menagerie that appears to be held in a dungeon.

                For a year, both tiger cubs are held captive and unhappy.  They are clearly not treated well.  Then the plan is created to use Sangha in a fight with another tiger.  The planners contact a circus for use of their tiger, not knowing it is Sangha’s brother, Kumal.  On the day of the fight, McRory recognizes Kumal and tries to buy him in order to keep Kumal from fighting.  The circus decides they would rather go with the original plan.  Kumal is released into the ring with Sangha, and at first the brothers do not recognize each other.  However, it only takes a few moments before they do.  Once they realize who the other is, the two tigers begin to play with each other.  This angers the organizers.  They try to get the two tigers to fight, but Kumal and Sangha escape instead.

                After the escape, the two tigers wreak playful havoc on the town.  They cause a lot of destruction and McRory is sent to kill them.  Raoul, who recognized Sangha at the fight, is against this.  He tries to convince McRory not to go after the tigers, but McRory feels obligated.  He tries to explain his thoughts and feelings to Raoul, but Raoul will not be deterred in saving the tigers’ lives.                 

                I am going to spoil things for you a bit and tell you there is a happy ending.  How it is happy, I will not reveal to you.  That you will have to find out for yourself, and it may not be what you expect.  On the way to this happy ending, there are a lot of sad parts.  It is really hard watching the mother tiger doing whatever she can to get Kumal back and not succeeding.  She even jumps on Kumal’s crate as he is being driven to the circus.  I believe she would have figured out how to free him if the truck driver had not managed to throw her off.  Then she tries to protect the other cub and is shot in the process.  It is all very sad.  I will not even talk about the treatment of the tigers when they are no longer in McRory’s and Raoul’s care.

                From what I am saying, it probably sounds as though there are not any good moments, but that would be wrong.  I loved watching the cubs play together.  Also there were positive times with McRory and Raoul.  Some of the best parts are after the tigers escape the fight.  They are hilarious as they go around the town.  There are all sorts of antics they get into including playing in a bubble bath and hanging on a chandelier until the ceiling comes down.

                I mentioned earlier that at first I did not intend to write about this movie because it was too sad. By the end I knew I had to, despite the difficult parts, because I feel this is an important movie for people to watch. It shows how cruel people can be, all for their own amusement and profit. So much of the world is destroyed for these selfish reasons. Too much beauty disappears forever because of this. Two Brothers shows what can be saved if people take the time to really look at what is in front of them and appreciate how incredible it is.