Review of Little Budha (Movie Review Sample)

Review of Little Budha
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Review of Little Buddha movie
Little Buddha is both enjoyable and powerful at the same time. It provides a scintillating level of entertainment. This is despite the movie lacking scenes of sex, violence and awesome special effects. This is a fete that can be achieved by very few movies today. On top of Little Buddha providing wonderful amazing entertainment, the movie also raises spirits of the viewers. This leaves them with a positive feeling.
The plot of the movie is simple. The movie starts with a Buddhist priest, lama, beginning to see signs of the reincarnation of his teacher who had died a number of years before. It takes place in the modern-day Tibet. The Buddhist priest goes from Tibet to Seattle in search of a young Caucasian boy who is said to be among the suspected candidates. It turns out that there are two other candidates as well. When the lama finally meets the boy, he confirms that the boy truly has some traits that he himself had. A friendship is then struck between the two of them. The bot gets to know about the origin of Buddhism and of Siddhartha, the young price that was later called Buddha.
As soon as the Buddhist priest starts to narrate the story, the scene is switched to ancient Nepal. Here, the young Siddhartha is seen to live a relaxed life in the palace. He is protected from all stressful things in life such as old and sick people by King Suddhodana, his father. However, with time the young prince starts to wonder about things in the outside world. This leads him to sneaking outside of the palace gate a certain day. To the Buddhists, this story is famously known as the Four Gates. There is one powerful scene where the Siddhartha comes across a funeral pyre. The prince looks on as the body is consumed by the flames. As he does this, he is struck by the sad reality that all human beings are mortal and he is brought to tears. This scene is one of the major points in the movie though there are other notable and well-done scenes as the setting is switched between traditional Nepal and modern-day Tibet. It must be said that the young children playing the roles of the reincarnated teacher do a very wonderful job.
The movie does a good job of educating the viewers, particularly Americans, about Buddhism. This is particularly demonstrated in the ancient segment of the story that displays Buddhism as a doting teaching that is breed out of Buddha's look into the reality of mortality. There is a crucial point that is implied by the movie. Had Siddhartha stopped upon the realization of mortality, he would have become a depressed and negative personal. He would have been full of complaining and might even have been suicidal. The crucial point that is implied is that suffering affects every living being as all of them will eventually die. The moment that the prince realizes this is comprehensively shown in the movie. After this realization, the great love of the prince flowed and he soon became the Buddha.
For a large period of time, the movie focuses on the search for reincarnation of the teacher. This may lead to a wide majority of Americans concluding that all Buddhists in the world believe in reincarnation. The movie is therefore misleading in a way as there are some Buddhist sects like the Jodo Shinshu that have no belief in reincarnation.
The big question is whether the Buddha himself believed in reincarnation. The answer to this question might be got from the funeral pyre scene. In this scene, the Siddhartha cries just like all human beings. This is because though we as humans can comfort ourselves with options such as afterlife and reincarnation, the strong, scaring and humbling end of the in flames cannot be denied. On top of this, there is also some evidence back in history that the Buddha neither believed in reincarnation nor the presence of a soul. The Buddha can be said to have been radical as the teachings on mortality did not conform to the existing beliefs like reincarnation, as he c...