“KEEPING BOTH PEOPLE AND TIGERS SAFE”
WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW:
Overall, TIGERS ON THE RISE is an interesting documentary. The story is all over the place and often choppy, but the information and most of the movie’s scenes are interesting. There are very little issues or cause for concern in TIGERS ON THE RISE. Its main message is education and conservation, including the protection of both people and tigers in India. TIGERS ON THE RISE has two light profanities and a scene of two tigers fighting. The movie is engaging, but at the same time nothing special to watch.
CONTENT:
Mainly a moral worldview with a light environmentalist from a conservationist standpoint where the whole movie is about how various people in India are adapting to the rise in the population of tigers, plus the movie doesn’t shame humans and tell them they are doing the wrong things, but rather it educates and shows that whereas tigers are indeed dangerous, they are also easy to live with if people follow certain safety precautions, and the movie shows how tigers are important to the environment and ecosystem of India, and, finally, the people of India are shown to have a certain reverence, and some even go on to worship the creatures in a theologically false way, but this is a minor mention in the movie;
One of the cinematographers says OMG twice when he gets excited;
A tiger is shot by a dart gun, and two tigers fight in one scene;
No sex other than discussion of India’s tiger population showing an increase;
No nudity;
No alcohol use;
No smoking or drugs; and,
Nothing else objectionable.
MORE DETAIL:
TIGERS ON THE RISE is a documentary on Disney+ that is half a sequel and half a behind-the-scenes of Disney’s new documentary TIGER. TIGERS ON THE RISE focuses on the increasing rise in the tiger population in India, and how tigers live among their scariest neighbor, humans. This documentary is meant to educate people on how to treat and live with tigers and follows multiple groups of people who study the massive, majestic cats.
The first group that are followed are Pooja Rathod and Kalyan Suman who are cameramen who worked on the previous movie, TIGER. Pooja and Kalyan are not only talented cameraman but were the ones who followed the four tiger cubs in the first movie, specifically focusing on the smallest tigress cub. The two cameramen frequently show care and respect for the massive cats. They recognize that, for the most part, if you don’t actively bother the big cats, they can be very good neighbors.
Along with following the tigers from the other documentary, Pooja and Kaylan also followed a tiger who has become comfortable living in the park of a major city. The goals of both these talented photographers are to educate people on how to live with tigers nearby and relieve fear among various villagers.
Another person followed throughout the movie is Dr. Bilial Habib, who is known as the tiger expert of India. He also worked as a consultant for Disney on TIGER. Bilial spends most of his time trying to solve tiger-related problems of villages all over India.
Bair Underwood, the movie’s narrator, notes in the beginning that the number of tigers in India’s nature preserves have doubled in the last 15 years. As a result, the tigers are running out of space and have started to travel beyond the preserves, near where people live.
With the rise of India’s tiger population comes the rise of tigers becoming pests. So, Dr. Habib comes up with solutions to benefit both humans and the tigers. One of these options is painting eyes on the backsides of livestock, so that tigers think they are constantly being watched and won’t attack. The other major experiment that Dr. Habib does is a tiger dating service where he finds and introduces new females into a preserve that has too many males, to help increase the already rising tiger population.
However, not everyone’s job in this documentary is the tiger population. There are other people who are more dedicated to safety measures dealing with the giant jungle cats. One example is Shital Thakie, who leads India’s nature rangers. Her job is to respond to animal attacks including tiger attacks. Tigers don’t normally attack humans because they’re afraid of us. However, hungry and young tigers with little experience are known to attack humans, especially when they are crouched over. Shital’s job is to not only promote safety but to help deal with problematic killer tigers in a humane way.
This is where viewers are introduced to Dr. Ravi Khopagage, who specializes in animal capture and release. In one instance he and his team capture a young male tiger they named P2 who had killed a woman. Instead of putting the tiger down, they instead have him sent to one of India’s largest zoos where he will aid in the education of India’s residents, but not in a way that he can ever hurt someone again. Although P2 lost his freedom, the zoo will take care of him.
The whole documentary shows how important tigers are to India’s culture. Many villages in India not only love having tigers, but some of them also revere the animals. In addition, some villages even have a strange worship of the mighty creature.
The main theme in TIGERS ON THE RISE is to destroy ignorance and educate not just the people of India but the whole world about tigers, and the important role they play in the environment and culture of India. The movie’s a bit choppy in its storytelling going back and forth with multiple stories about different tigers and people. The main worldview is a conservative, educational worldview. Aside from two light profanities and a scene of two tigers fighting, TIGERS ON THE RISE is family friendly. It’s not the best nature documentary by Disney, but it’s certainly not the worst.