Kundun Critic Reviews

Stately but static. [23 December 1997, p.3D]Read the full review

Stunning, odd, glorious, calm and sensationally absorbing.Read the full review

It provides a deep spirituality, but denies the Dalai Lama humanity; he is permitted certain little human touches, but is essentially an icon, not a man. Read the full review

Ultimately Kundun emerges as a movie that's hypnotic without being truly compelling, sensuously stunning but not illuminating. Read the full review

A stunningly beautiful object offered in tribute to a holy man, a gorgeous film that is nevertheless burdened by the defects of its virtues. Careful and respectful, it is everything a movie about the Dalai Lama should be except dramatically involving. Read the full review

May not be the ultimate word on the Tibetan situation, or even the Dalai Lama, but its heart seems to be in the right place; and it's entertaining enough to give audiences an emotional sense of the story. [16 January 1998, p.N32]Read the full review

It's all very beautiful, not to mentioned high-minded. But the loftiness comes at a sacrifice. Read the full review

The music ties together all the pretty pictures, gives the narrative some momentum, and helps to induce a kind of alert detachment, so that you're neither especially interested nor especially bored. Perhaps that's a state of Buddhist enlightenment. Read the full review

Most of the film is dull and soporific. Breathtaking photography without emotional involvement can take an audience only so far.Read the full review