Samsara [ NON-USA FORMAT, PAL, Reg.4 Import - Australia ]

Samsara [ NON-USA FORMAT, PAL, Reg.4 Import - Australia ] Review

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Note: Tibetan with English subtitles. If you live in the America's you'll need a Multi-Region player to watch this DVD.

Lashi (Shawn Ku) has lived in the monastery since the age of five. Now a man in his twenties he has just completed an arduous three year meditation in total isolation, thus winning for himself the admiration of the Tibetan community. However something has changed within the young monk since his return from his solitary retreat. He now finds himself filled with the desires of the flesh, repeatedly awakening in the morning with soiled robes, a sure sign of the sensual nature of his dreams during the night.

Lashi realizes that he cannot renounce those pleasures in life that he has never had the chance to experience. He leaves the monastery and travels to a nearby village, the home of Pema (Christy Chung) a young woman with whom he had a recent and brief encounter. He falls in love, marries and their union is blessed with a son they name Karma. Unfortunately, with the passing years Lashi still finds himself unfulfilled and further from enlightenment than ever.

What is the truest path? Is it to seek earthly fulfillment or to renounce the world and look within? The unanswerable question comes to a most unexpected conclusion.

I love this movie! Filmed in the Himalayas, the cinematography alone makes the movie worth watching. The production values are extaordinary and the cast is superb. Shawn Ku is amazing as the monk who can't make up his mind and Christy Chung may even be better as the wife and mother who tries to hold it all together.

Samsara [ NON-USA FORMAT, PAL, Reg.4 Import - Australia ] Feature

• THIS DVD WILL NOT WORK ON STANDARD US DVD PLAYER

Australia released, PAL/Region 4 DVD: it WILL NOT play on standard US DVD player. You need multi-region PAL/NTSC DVD player to view it in USA/Canada: LANGUAGES: English ( Subtitles ), WIDESCREEN, SPECIAL FEATURES: Biographies, Cast/Crew Interview(s), Interactive Menu, Photo Gallery, Production Notes, Scene Access, Trailer(s), SYNOPSIS: Indian born filmmaker Pan Nalin makes his directorial debut with this sensual, elegant look at sex and spirituality. Tashi (Shawn Ku) is a gifted young monk who is just completing three years of solitary mediation in the mountains. Sporting long hair and a scraggly beard, Tashi is roused out of his deep mediation and brought back to his monastery by his fellow monks. There he rests up to recover his strength, returning to the usual rigors of monastic life. Though he is highly revered for having attained a profound level of enlightenment, Tashi is surprised to discover the sudden awakening of his own sex drive. While blessing the annual crop, he encounters beautiful peasant girl Pema (Christy Chung) and immediately he falls in love. Arguing that to properly renounce the world he would have to experience it first, he leaves his order and eventually marries Pema. This film was screened at the 2001 Toronto Film Festival.
SCREENED/AWARDED AT: Toronto International Film Festival,

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Customer Reviews

Samsara - The Search for Enlightenment - Darren Abrahams - Brighton, UK
I saw this film for the first time in 2003 in a tiny cinema in New Zealand. When the film finished it sparked intense debate from all the viewers in the room. How often do you go to the cinema and have spontaneous discussion with other film goers? This made as much of an impression on me as the film itself. I was travelling then so by the time I got home I didn't remember the exact title of the film and no matter how I searched for it online it never showed up. Until now. I managed to locate the film a few weeks ago and watched it again as if for the first time.
Not only is this film visually stunning, compelling in its storytelling but it also makes you think. The story of Tashi and Pema raises many questions about the search for enlightenment, not least the idea that we have to live the life of an ascetic to find it. Traditionally the attainment of enlightment has been confined to men alone, but this story also questions that assumption and shows how woman may have been sitting there ahead of us from the very beginning. Watch this film with an open mind - there is no conclusion here. As in all the best stories, it leaves the ball firmly in your court.

natural sex beauty - Michael Kerjman - The Earth
Telling a story of Tibetan clergy, this movie disclosed pages unknown to majority of the Westerners where lust, sex and mere natural behaviour constitute a very ground of from this region originating religion much questioned by filmmakers comparing the realities of these days samsara (a world surrounding) with religious teaching and realms at the local monasteries.


May 31, 2010 21:40:08