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The story is about the passion of young Lama monks during the World Cup 1998. As you might expect, there were no TV's in their monastery. Therefore, some of the young monks sneaked out of the monastery and pay to watch the live broadcast of the matches. One night, they were caught, and were forbidden to sneak out again. On the final night, Orgyen, one of the young monks, decided to ask their Geko if they could rent a satellite dish so that all the monks can watch the match together. He got the permission, and went around to ask for money. He was just a bit short of cash, and had to ask the new Tibetan monks for some valuables as a pledge for money…

The film portrays the clash of the Buddhist idealogy with the modern world. While the monks were supposed to be "pure" in their minds (i.e., thinking about nothing but Bhuddism), were now facing the temptation of the real world: women, technology, and seemingly most important: football. The Geko (head of the monastery) had to face the new world, too. How could he teach the ideology of Buddhism to the young monks nowadays? Should they stick to the old ways, or concede to reality? It is a question for the audience.

Surely a low budget film is it. Without enough budgets even the night scenes were shot during the day. And, the World Cup footage did not quite match with the pace and theme of the film. However, on the whole the film is not a bad one. If you consider the fact that it is a Bhutan film, it is quite a miracle indeed. Bhutan is a country where even TV's are forbidden until lately. The government had been trying their best to restrict outside influence on their people by isolating them from the rest of the worl. It is understandable since with their small population, their culture would vanish once the people are open to other cultures (Do you know that your governments are doing the same to avoid we influenced by extra-terrestrial cultures, assuming their existence?) The film is so up to a standard that even many Hong Kong films cannot match.

I feel that director and writer Khyentse Norbu, to a certain degree, was using the monastery in the film to describe the situation of his country Bhutan, where outside culture, although forbidden, was slowing influencing the people in the entity.

註：本評論純屬影評作者個人意見，並不代表本網立場。
Note: This views presented in this review is solely the views of the critic who wrote it and do not represent the stance of our website.

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