Nés en Chine

While Disney Nature's Born in China is a fascinating mix of gorgeous animals and breathtaking cinematography, it does tend to feel a little too staged for my liking.

I'll always support documentaries like Born in China, especially if they provide a different viewpoint on creatures and landscapes that are unfamiliar to most of the general public. Born in China focuses on a few animals, including Pandas, Golden Monkeys, and Snow Leopards. All of which, center upon one common theme, family. Although the story lines feel entirely made up, which include gimmicky names, the scenarios aren't. It's interesting to watch different animals try and fight the elements and other competitors to provide for their family just like us humans. In that way, Born in China is for people of all ages.

But when the film adds too much fake subtext from John Krasinski's narration, it feels like something for kids looking for some silly giggles. Because it is Disney and the audience is mostly families, the film does feel a little safe. Sure, we do have Planet Earth and other documentaries that show us some of the harsher sides to animals of the wild, but I think we could have used a little more from each animal in Born in China. Either that, or just focus on 1 or 2 animals instead of a half dozen.

Does Born in China accomplish what it set out to do? Yes. It's an entertaining and at least somewhat informative look at wildlife in parts of China. However, there are several moments that feel entirely fabricated and may take away from the viewing experience. In short, if you're going in looking for a short history lesson, I think you'll come out at least pleased with what you get. I mean, who can honestly be upset after watching pandas for an hour and a half.

6.5/10

Disney: Nobody does it better, capturing nature seen for the first time by the general public. In Born in China, cuddly Pandas are featured along with a sleek snow leopard, young monkeys' business, and yak moms. Not to forget an occasional goshawk picking off careless youngun's even though more often than not the babies get away.

Yep, that's Disneyfied reality, keeping things sweet until it's necessary to do a reality check that is nonetheless about as sanitized as a Mormon cathedral. None of this visual manipulation is as distracting as the verbal honey director Chaun Lu and writers spread on John Krasinski's grade-school narration.

Touching moments abound, especially the family play and eat times. Making this documentary acceptable for the whole family are benign Darwinian search-for-food segments that may mislead children to think Tennyson was a blowhard when he called Nature "red in tooth and claw." The narration couches the rough moments in the usual Disney circle-of-life motif. It's beautifully- photographed propaganda for Mother Nature.

Regardless, it is gorgeous in a Disney way, bereft of the trauma the world faces every day. Go, if you will, just for the Chinese landscapes—they're impressive. Otherwise, it's a feel good date

The DisneyNature documentaries are interesting enough though some are better than others, for examples 2011's 'African Cats' being very good and 2020's 'Elephant' being a let down. The most common plus points being that they are all amazingly photographed and the scenery and animals are every bit as awe-inspiring. But when it comes to narration (writing and delivery) and tone the documentaries vary in quality, some work and others don't.

2016's 'Born in China' is one of the DisneyNature documentaries that could have been a lot better and didn't work as well as it ought to have done. The production values are extremely high but when it comes to the narration (John Krasinski on paper sounded wrong narrating a nature documentary so that already raised alarm bells) it is near-disastrous all round. As far as they go, 'Born in China' is in the lower end and am saying this with regret, being a fan of both Disney and documentaries.

'Born in China's' best aspect is the photography, which is nothing short of stunning. Likewise with the scenery, where the colour literally bursts out while also showing that the habitats can pose challenges for the animals. The music is grandiose without being over the top, while having some nice variety of tone.

In terms of footage, the footage visually is a wonder and unlike anything seen before by me. The animals, a nice mix of familiar and not so much and a mix of prey and predator, look photogenic and have a lot of personality that is more than just cute (quite wide-ranging and individual).

So sad though that the narration and the pace are massive minus points. The writing of the narration, as well as too talky, is very childish, if it was trying to appeal to younger audiences it was taken to extremes here, and tends to have a talking down to people quality. There is little sincere about the content and nothing struck me as illuminating, not to mention like some other DisneyNature documentaries it has a bad habit of over-explaining what's going on in a contrived way. And then it was delivered by Krasinski in a way that does not fit with what is going on in the imagery, even for the writing it was like he was acting out a mild comedy sketch, and is well over-the-top.

Pacing is pretty poor in 'Born in China'. It feels incredibly rushed, as a result of being far too short (it needed to be at least 15 minutes longer) and trying to squeeze in too much content. As incredible as the footage and animals took, not enough time is taken to explore them properly, very "talk about one thing and then a few minutes later literally jump to another" quality. The editing also tended to be too gimmicky and choppy, with a feeling of incompleteness. 'Born in China' tonally is a muddle, we have childish narration and then we have scenes that will disturb younger viewers and make adults understandably question the target audience. The storytelling is too contrived, too underdeveloped, too rushed and at times too schmaltzy to allow me to invest emotionally in what was going on.

On the whole, a disappointment. 4/10

10/4/17. A great documentary about 3 species of animals found China. The cinematography is just out of this world! Don't expect to learn a whole lot of new information about the Panda, Snow Leopard and the Snow Monkey. Just enjoy the opportunity to watch these animals in their natural habitat doing what they do best - live.

I got to see a special advance screening of this movie 6 months before its US release. I may mention certain specific moments of the movie, but I won't spoil anything.

One of the producers came onstage before the movie started and talked about how it took 4 years to film everything and then they edited everything together to form each of the stories. This is noticeable in at least one scene where it cuts back and forth between a panda and red panda to imply they're looking at each other, but that's the only noticeable instance that comes to mind.

Among all the animals they filmed, the three main stories center around families of Pandas, monkeys, and snow leopards. The narrator tries to anthropomorphicise everything the cute furry animals do. I know other nature documentaries sometimes do that, this one does it a lot, trying everything to make it more emotionally relatable, and I guess for the most part it works, but it might get a little annoying at parts.

Speaking of the narrator, I assume there was a technical difficulty at my screening since there was no narration for the first 10 minutes, then all of a sudden he started taking as if we already knew who the animals were. What's up with that?

It sorta goes without saying that the landscapes are beautiful and the footage is impressive. What really sets this film apart is how much footage they got of the snow leopards. If you didn't know, snow leopards are very rare and notoriously difficult to photograph, let alone film. Even Planet Earth didn't get anywhere near as much footage, or as close. I'd say this movie is worth checking out just for the snow leopard footage alone.

It's difficult for me to give nature films a numerical rating since they're so different from traditional movies, so all I can really say is its pretty good. I gave it a 7/10 because I ranked every movie I've seen in theaters in 2016 from best to worst, and this movie falls in the 7/10 block for me.