A London Lion (A Lion Called Christian (DVD))

Member Name: wigglylittleworm

Product:	A Lion Called Christian (DVD)
Date:	12/06/09 (126 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Lovely footage of lions

Disadvantages: A bit short

In 1969 two young Australians living in London visited Harrods and amazingly their animal department had a lion cub for sale. They fell in love with the lion who they named Christian and took him home to their flat after paying the equivalent of £3000. The lion had the run of the furniture shop that they ran downstairs, used a huge kitty litter box, drank from the bath and they bundled him into the back seat of the car to take him for exercise in a churchyard or to parties with friends.

Looking after a lion cub was fun but as Christian grew they started to realise that a fully grown lion could not live in a small flat in the city; his appetite was growing and as he became more mature he started to become less submissive towards his owners. A chance meeting with the stars of the film Born Free leads to the idea of releasing him in the wilds of Kenya with the controversial conservationist George Adamson.

They board the plane to Kenya and the urban lion is initially confused by the sights and sounds of a foreign land. He has a massive power struggle with dominant male lion Boy who later killed a man and was shot. Will this London lion learn to live in the wild or has his party life in London made him unable to acclimatise to life with other lions.

I initially saw the film "A Lion Called Christian" on the shelves of ASDA and the picture of the front of a lion leaning out of a sports car with two men sitting either side of him immediately grabbed my interest. I read the back of the box and it said the film was made after a clip of Christian on YouTube had become an internet sensation. When I got home I looked for the videos online and they were so lovely that I immediately logged on to Amazon to buy the DVD.

The DVD is a documentary which mixes original footage of Christian with interviews with John and Ace and voiceover commentary. The film quality is often fairly poor as the original footage was shot over 30 years ago but the images of London and the fashions of the time make the old footage really watchable. The footage of the lions is lovely, it was really sad to see Christian's parents looking miserable in the zoo and Christian himself in a cage in Harrods. It's hard to believe that a department store sold wild animals and it's lucky that the men who made the spur of the moment decision to buy an exotic animal turned out to be so devoted to him.

The documentary is only 45 minutes long so I ended up feeling a bit cheated at paying £8 for such a short film. The extras add a few extra minutes of viewing time but were nothing to write home about. I did enjoy all 45 minutes of the screening though and if they had made the film longer than the extra material would just be padding. Watching the lion interact with people was brilliant, watching John and Ace take a lion for a walk and seeing how obedient and affectionate Christian was is lovely. I was amazed that Christian never scratched them even accidentally when he jumped up to hug them, I have puncture marks on my belly from my domestic cat and I imagine that a scratch from a lion would take a very long time to heal.

I had mixed feelings towards John and Ace, part of me thought they were foolish and reckless for taking Christian home but seeing how much time and energy they put into doing what was right for him made me like and respect them. Sending a London lion to Africa was a risky experiment, the risks only too apparent when Boy killed one of the men looking after him and had to be destroyed and it really makes you think about the issues surrounding conservation.

A Lion Called Christian is a really moving DVD which will pull on your heartstrings. It's an amazing true story which shows the devotion of two men towards a lion and how that love changed many lives.

Summary: A DVD that will pull on your heartstrings