Disneynature Born in China on Home Video (Jason’s 1st Impressions)
Disneynature released Born in China on Earth Day 2017 and the film is now available on Blu-ray, DVD and Digital HD. In this film you are taken to remote regions of China and follow a giant panda mother and her offspring, a golden snub-nosed monkey troop, and a snow leopard family. Plus a look at the red-crown crane family. For each family the film spans a year and shares their lives, struggles, and routines. As with all Disneynature films the settings are unique and inspiring. Freezing the picture for each to admire the view/background is incredible. As you would expect the giant pandas are interesting but I found the monkeys and snow leopards stories more compelling and interesting to watch. The pandas just sit around or climb and eat. The others tend to do more interesting behaviors.
The bonus material available on this release were on the thin side for my tastes. If you add them up they clock in at over 30 minutes (almost half the length of the film itself) but I would have liked to have seen more in depth look at the making of the film. I am always interested in the locations and logistics it takes to capture the footage for these films and then the herculean task of editing the film. There is a featurette for each of the three main families looking at some of the filming challenges and these range in length from 5-8 minutes which is really just scratching the surface in my opinion. They do not look at creating the story, voice over, editing, or other aspects that go into creating the film. Even the trailer for the next film, Dolphins, was only a minute long. So everything felt compressed to me. For a more complete listing of the bonus material and disc specifications here is the initial Born in China Home Video Press Release.
I enjoy sitting back, relaxing and enjoying the Disneynature films. The bonus material is sometimes frustrating with how thin it is but having these films available to watch and pause is the main reason I add them to my library. If you are looking to “virtually” travel to a part of the world few do and see some incredible animals up close Disneynature’s Born in China delivers.
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