Shadow of the Wolf

It was a France-Canada co-production to expose the life of Inuit natives settlement in far off Canadian northern nearby North Pole, as American movies dealing with their natives as white man's dependency on supplying gun fires, steel traps, alcohol, medicine and mainly trading those valuable furs addressed to American market and Europe as well as displayed in the movie, they bring the famous actors to play the main characters as the Philippine Lou Diamond Philips, the Japanese Toshirô Mifune, Jennifer Tilly, all them has somehow Mongol ancestry, upon this small detail their fit perfect as Inuit people otherwise the British Donald Sutherland as policeman.

Such coexistence at some moment they would enter in clash due inserting the poisoned booze on settlement worsening the things, whereby it gonna happen by a bear's fur got by Agaguk (Diamond Philips) sold by a nasty white trader Brown by his father Chief-shaman boozer Kromaak (Toshiro Mifune) it triggers a natural acrimony between them, Agaguk went to kill Brown for refused get back the fur, all this allied a bad relationship with his lewd father he went away with his girl Igiyook (Jennifer Tilly) whereof the couple tried survived by themselves on ice landscape, therefore it doesn't take too long appears a white policeman asking for Brown's death.

Shadow of the Wolf aside the clashes between natives and white people is underpinned in Iniut's spiritual background where someone empowered with views of future arise at leadership among bravery and others strengths, they also suppose when somebody faces the death and survives becomes in another man itself as exposed on picture, aside some natural mismatches as those artificial sets, the movie doesn't disappoint as the low ratings trie assure, it bring the way of life of this people that ought adjust on a new environment which includes the white man domain, even bad or not!!

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First watch: 1996 / How many: 4 / Source: TV-DVD / Rating: 7.5.

I found this film to a little dull but what makes this one accurate is the fact that the way the Inuit are portrayed in it. They are depicted quite well for a Hollywood made flick. I'm very surprised how many actors of actual Inuit background were in this film. I know for a fact that they weren't just actors of other ethnic backgrounds pretending to be Inuit since their last names are actually Inuit names. All the other villagers were truly Inuit except for Lou Diamond Phillips and Jennifer Tilly. I love ANY film that deals with Native North Americans just as long as its not a typical Hollywood made movie that views them as "savages" or "heathens" who like to attack wagon trains!! I personally don't appreciate negative stereotypes like that.

But ........... however........ anyways........... this is the reason why I gave this film a 6 out of 10.

Lou Diamond Phillips deserves a lot of credit for even tackling this subject. A well photographed movie about the lives of the Inuit, this just isn't a commercial item. The fact alone that it was shot on location must have cost a fortune. This film shows a lot of loving tender care in the making and the cast is great throughout. Too bad that it just wasn't commercial enough.

I happen to meet Lou in my town when he was appearing as King Arthur in a production of Camelot. I told him how much I liked the film and it was unfortunate that it went straight to video. I also asked him how he liked working with Toshiro Mifune.

He replied that it was a great experience, that Toshiro Mifune was a great actor and very good to work with and it was an honor to play his son in the film.

It must have been one rugged location, those films set at either of the Earth's poles usually are. The performances by Lou as the young Inuit outcast, Toshiro Mifune as his father the medicine man of the tribe and Donald Sutherland as a Mountie are uniformly excellent.

Don't miss this very neglected item.

How often do you get to travel to the arctic and live with the indigenous people there who have been living pretty nearly the life of their distant and technologically primitive ancestors? Excellent cinematography, excellent musical score. Very enjoyable experience.

I like this movie because drama of the arctic pole are rare! In this point of view, it's very original. But the settings are so Hollywood! This arctic don't seem to be so cold and Jennifer Tilly don't look like an Inuit woman. But the story is good, even if the movie had few to do with the Yves Theriault book AGAGUK (it's supposed to be the movie of the book). But it's a good piece of work. Lou Diamond Phillips is O.K.