To Walk with Lions

To Walk with Lions
Directed by Carl Schultz
Produced by Julie Allan
Pieter Kroonenburg
Hélène Boulay
Written by George Adamson (book)
Sharon Buckingham
Keith Ross Leckie
Starring Richard Harris
John Michie
Ian Bannen
Kerry Fox
Music by Alan Reeves
Distributed by IAC Film and Television
Mosaic Entertainment
Release dates
 1999
Running time
 106 minutes
Country Canada
United Kingdom
Kenya
Language English

To Walk with Lions is a 1999 film starring Richard Harris as George Adamson and John Michie as Tony Fitzjohn. It follows the later years of wild game preserver/naturalist Adamson.

After his marriage to Joy Adamson, both of Born Free book and film fame, Adamson spent the latter part of his life protecting the lions and other wildlife in the Kora National Reserve, Kenya. He encounters poachers and government corruption blocking his quest for wildlife preservation.


Cast

Plot

Tony Fitzjohn (John Michie) has just come to work on Kora, a lion preserve, for two elderly brothers, George and Terrence Adamson (Ian Bannen). On the first day Fitzjohn goes against George’s advice and is nearly mauled by a lion. Being informed this is how the last person to fill his position came to be killed, he writes the whole place off as crazy and decides to leave. With a last minute change of heart, and a lion cub brought in from a zoo for him to train and reintroduce into the wild he soon discovers his life’s true calling.

Years pass and Kora’s lions are being picked off by herdsmen one by one with bullets and poison and the elephants and rhinos are being poached at an alarming rate for their tusks and horns. The Adamson brothers are expending all of their energies in protecting the wildlife but can hardly compete; as Fitzjohn observes “A ranger may make 800 shillings a month but a poacher will pay him 10,000 just to turn his back for a day”. The odds seem to be insurmountable as the poachers pile in and the animal death toll rises while the local government decides that it doesn’t really want a wildlife preserve at all.

External links

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