Life of Pi Official Trailer
Title: Life of Pi (2012)
BD-50 Dual-Layer Disc / Three Disc Set
Video: 1080p / AVC
Audio: DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
Subtitles: English SDH, Spanish, Portuguese, German, Arabic, Bulgarian, Cantonese, Croatian, Czech, Greek, Hebrew, Hungarian, Icelandic, Indonesian, Korean, Malay, Mandarin (Traditional), Polish, Romanian, Serbian, Slovenian, Turkish, & Vietnamese
Run time: 123 minutes
Studio: 20th Century Fox
Region Coding: Region Free
Suraj Sharma as Pi Patel
Irrfan Khan as Adult Pi Patel
Adil Hussain as Santosh Patel
Tabu as Gita Patel
Vibish Sivakumar as Ravi Patel
Rafe Spall as Writer
Gérard Depardieu as Cook
James Saito as Older Insurance Investigator
Jun Naito as Younger Insurance Investigator
Andrea Di Stefano as Priest
Shravanthi Sainath as Anandi
Elie Alouf as Mamaji
Directed by Ang Lee
From the legendary Taiwanese director who brought us Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Ride with the Devil comes The Lie of Pi. Ang Lee's film won him the Best Director Oscar along with three other wins and seven additional nominations.
In present day Canada a writer seeks out Pi Patel because he has been told that his life story is something extraordinary. Pi explains how he grew up in Pondicherry, India and spent most of his childhood there with his family who owned a zoo. He tells how the writer how he received his nickname and how he was exposed to several religions including Hindi, Catholicism, and Islam and for many years struggled to understand just what God's plan for him consisted of.
One day Pi's father decides that it is time to sell the zoo and move to Canada. He also wants to take the animals with them so they can be sold once they reach Canada. To make this trip they hitch a ride on a Japanese freighter, which falls victim to a storm causing the ship to sink. Pi is stranded in a 30 foot lifeboat with a zebra, hyena, orangutan, and a Bengal Tiger named Richard Parker. As hours turn into days without any sign of rescue Pi must use his knowledge to stay alive, which proves to be more difficult than expected with four other animals in the boat. Pi's tale of survival against the harshest of elements is beyond amazing.
I can honestly say that Life of Pi is enjoyable in just about every way. With a well written script, wonderful performances, and some beautiful imagery everyone should give this a viewing at least once. Due to some intense moments this may not be suitable for younger children.
Life of Pi won the Academy Award for Visual Effects and it's really no surprise. Presented in 1.85:1, except for a few moments of 2.39:1 and 1.33:1, the film is strikingly beautiful from start to finish. Flesh tones are natural and colors are properly saturated. There is a fine layer of grain that is never obtrusive even during the film's darker sequences. I also didn't notice any banding and I was expecting some since this film does have some prolonged scenes of darkness. Fine detail is perfect as well whether you're looking at Richard Parker's individual hairs, the chipping paint on the lifeboat, or the crystal clear ocean water. This is absolutely demo material in every sense.
Life of Pi was shown theatrically Dolby Surround 7.1 and that has been faithfully recreated in an excellent DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1 mix for its Blu-ray release. Dialogue is always clear and concise in the center channel even during the film's intense moments. The fronts and surrounds receive almost constant attention with both discrete and louder effects creating an extremely enveloping sound field. The LFE really works the sub during the sinking of the freighter and a few other other key moments. The film's score is also beautifully composed and balanced, but is never obtrusive. Again, this is demo material much like the picture quality.
The extras for Life of Pi are spread across both the 3D and 2D discs depending if there is 3D material to be viewed. The 3D disc contains five deleted scenes that run about 13 minutes, a 14 minute look at the visual effects progressions, and the film's theatrical trailer. All of these above features are available in 3D or 2D. The 2D disc contains the rest of the supplements found in this set. First up is an extensive 63 minute documentary on the making of the film that is separated into four parts. Next up is a 19 minute piece with visual effects supervisor Bill Westerhofer. Next is an eight minute look at the use of a real and CGI tiger for the role of Richard Parker. Next is a pre-production artwork gallery. Finally, we are given a 12 minute feature that contains the complete storyboards for seven of the film's scenes. Every feature on both discs is presented in HD. There is also a DVD copy of the film included on a third disc as well as a Ultraviolet Digital Copy code.
Final Word: A Must Own