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Why so much hype?

Overrated and overhyped

Good story, Not enough for a whole film

Excellent but underrated film

The scenery of Wolf Totem was excellent in a classic IMAX style, back when IMAX was only used to shoot documentaries about wolves versus now when we shoot narratives about them..The action sequences were great as well. This is the third movie this year behind, Max and White God, that actually shows canines battling (This one being with wolves). It amazes me that PETA is not all over these people for showing animals fighting and getting kill in such a real matter. I'm not even a dog lover, but in this day in age it's surprising they do stuff like that on camera.I was also impressed with the human performance of the main actor and his female lead. I could see the passion the lead actor had for the wolf and I did not need subtitles to understand him, very good body language.It was a lovely moving painting.

I know the name of Jean-Jacques Annaud from The Bear, a movie that made his name a lot more memorable to me than The Name of the Rose, another movie I loved and that he directed. In The Bear, the main character was a little bear cub and any humans in the film were mere secondary characters. The things that film did with animals was nothing short of miraculous.In this Chinese-French coproduction, there are a lot of wolves and talk about wolves and people getting angry about wolves or loving them, but they are not the main characters. Relegated to the subject of a conversation, wolves play a minor part in this film that doesn't seem to know what it wants to be. It shows a little bit of Chinese Cultural Revolution, but not enough to be of any relevance or warrant the wrath of Chinese authorities. It shows the free way of the Mongols living in the steppes, but it doesn't go in depth. It shows some beautiful wolves, but most of the time they just look pretty and don't do much. It shows men in love with women, but it never goes into romance territory. It shows city boys being schooled in the ways of the steppe, but it doesn't really make anything of it.The acting was good and so was the direction, I guess. The wide views of the green steppe were beautiful (until the mosquitoes arrived). Yet most of the time is seemed like a fairy tale, lacking a truth that I am not aware of, but that felt like it should be different.It is not that I didn't like the film, but after two hours of going back and forth between genres, alternating between hating the Communist director who doesn't understand the life of the land and hating just about everybody else for their pretentious stupidity, I was actually bored.

This film, in general, is not bad, but the original novel's author is obviously strongly influenced by the Chinese Communism. He glorified the heartless Culture Revolution in last century, and never touched the sensitive taboos of those absolute-NO-NOs indoctrinated by the reigning Chinese Party. What we got in this film is a wonderful Inner Mongolian prairies life. Two displaced young Mandarin men were forced to leave their hometown and exiled to the far and remote Inner Mongolia province, trying to survive for the stipulated 2 years expatriation.The production team of this movie had hired some specialists to train a bunch of wolves to play the main and critical roles of this film. I have also read some of the scandals related to the rehabilitation of those wolves after the film was completed. what I found the most pretentious flaw in this film is the female actors to play the Mongolian tribal women (like the females in "Spare Parts 2015). They are extremely eye-appealing and cosmetically pretty, yet the truth about the Mongolian females(like the females in "Spare Parts 2015), most of them are not as pretty as what the movie showed us. The other unrealistic part of the film is the kind faces and the gentle way of talk from the local Chinese Communist Party officials. They looked too civilized and too reasonably kind when treating the Mongolian nomad tribes. The good part of this film is the camera work, the cinematography, it did an amazing job to show us the beauty of the Mongolian wildness, through the lens, it pretentiously beautified the tough livelihood of the local tribes, showed us the wonderful free spirit of those people. But in truth, is it true that the Chinese Communist Party would be that kind? When I watched this film, I have to remind myself that this film was not a documentary film, I had to watch carefully for those phony and false parts of it. When the Chinese Communist Party censors every book, every movie, every TV program, every blog on line, many real things would be carefully omitted and avoided, otherwise, nothing could be released or past the censorship. So it also means that anything that have been approved must not demonize the Party but praise, otherwise jail time and long term imprisonment would be implemented.So don't be fooled by this already heavily cosmetically beautified film, by its beautiful cinematography achievement, by those absolutely unreal Mongolian young beauties.

It saddens me that this film will not receive a wider audience. With an English title of "Wolf Totem" very few outside of France or China will be tempted to see it, but it is their loss.Wolf Totem manages to bring to the big screen the majesty and mystery of wolves. But it is much more than a National Geographic or Animal Planet documentary. (Although those in themselves would be a great success.) It also invites us into the world of Inner Mongolia and tells a compelling tale of human love and loss. This is not Le Renard et L'infant (The Fox and the Child). It succeeds in telling a much grander tale. The acting is all very believable and unlike the usual over-the-top soap opera-esque fare available in most Chinese cinema.But come for the wolves. I could howl their praises all night long.