A reluctant lion king has his paws full trying to save his jungle kingdom.A reluctant lion king has his paws full trying to save his jungle kingdom.A reluctant lion king has his paws full trying to save his jungle kingdom.
Photos
- Director
- Diane Paloma Eskenazi(uncredited)
- Writers
- All cast & crew
- Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaThis was released in Summer 1994 on VHS in the iconic white clamshell casing that had become synonymous with the home video release of Disney features. At the height of the craze over the original animated film "The Lion King" being in theaters and cultivating a phenomenal following at the time, seeing this film on shelves in stores caused confusion for both parents and children, thinking it was the actual Disney film itself. Goodtimes Home Video, now defunct, was releasing similar or exact titled cartoons that were in obscurity to capitalize on the success of a Disney film in theaters at the time. They did the same with "Beauty and the Beast" and "The Little Mermaid". Eventually the company was forced to relinquish this practice in the face of legal action from Disney, thus leading to its eventual folding a few years later.
Featured review
A childhood favourite that sadly doesn't hold up
I say this regrettably as I do like Golden Films' output in general, especially Thumbelina, The Little Mermaid and Pinocchio. However, re-visiting their animations The Jungle King(though I have yet to see Tarzan of the Apes) beats Anastasia as their worst. It is not irredeemable however, the best asset is easily the classical music that plays throughout, with the likes of Beethoven's 5th Symphony, Mendelssohn's Midsummer Nights Dream Overture, Ponchielli's Dance of the Hours, Elgar's Enigma Variations, Rimsky Korsakov's Sheherazade, Wagner's Flying Dutchman, Bizet's Carmen and Beethoven's Coriolan Overture, and the final 10 minutes or so are the most involving The Jungle King gets. However, the animation is very uneven, sometimes vibrant but more often than that it is poor with flat colours and stiff character designs. The title song is forgettable and not catchy at all, with no attempt whatsoever made to make the singer(who has that singing-through-gritted-teeth sort of voice) similar to the voice actor. The voice acting often feels overdone, especially Max who is overly-bombastic a lot of the time, but they are not helped by, with the exception of Irwin, the increasingly camp and even effeminate characters(I know Max wasn't meant to be likable but The Jungle King goes beyond that, you actually can't stand him). Nor by the writing which is never witty or funny no matter how hard it tries, the will fire you, execute you and then....fire you again! line came across as ridiculously exaggerated, while the story is contrived with little happening or engaging until the end fight. Overall, most of the time my childhood favourites hold up, The Jungle King sadly is not one of them. 3/10 Bethany Cox
helpful•61
- TheLittleSongbird
- Jul 24, 2012
Details
- Release date
- Countries of origin
- Language
- Also known as
- Enchanted Tales: The Jungle King
- Production company
- See more company credits at IMDbPro
- Runtime48 minutes
- Color
- Aspect ratio
- 1.33 : 1
Contribute to this page
Suggest an edit or add missing content