Reviewed by Stuart O'Connor
DVD Region 2 | UK certification E | UK RRP £12.99
Runtime 180 minutes | Narrated by David Attenborough | Directed by John Downer
Ah, you've got to love technology. Here we have these wonderful new-fangled spycams — hi-def cameras that you can stick anywhere. So they can be used for evil (countries can spy on each other, or even their own citizens) or for good, like here where they are used to get up close and personal with a family of tigers.
This three-part BBC series was filmed over a period of two years, in the tiger reserve of Pench national park in central India. And you know what the clever thing was? The filmmakers used elephants — or, as narrator David Attenborough calls them, the ultimate all-terrain camera vehicle — to get the cameras near the tigers. And the high-definition cameras were hidden inside fake tree trunks, or logs. So because tigers are used to seeing elephants in their territory, they didn't bat an eyelid or raise a claw. Which means that here we have, as Attenborough points out, probably the most intimate portrait ever of tigers in the wild.
The main focus of the series is a female tiger and her four cubs (two boys and two girls, if you must know). We meet the cubs a few days after they are born, and follow them to adulthood. We watch these beautiful animals as they first learn to walk, and later learn to play and then to hunt. We watch as their mother hunts for their food (these tigers having a pretty good diet, mainly living on venison) and teaches them about the dangers they will face. And as with all BBC nature series — especially any that involve Attenborough — this is brilliant and fascinating stuff.
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