Son of the Jungle: The Burmese Jungle Hunt movie

Hi there Kenya Boy fans. Today’s instalment is a Burmese Mockbuster derived from two movies by M.P. Shankar. 

The Z grade film is named Son of the Jungle which is otherwise an unofficial Burmese remake of two films by M.P. Shankar and an unofficial adaptation of Jungle Hunt itself. It was most likely released in 2013, by its director/story creator Aung Htoo Tyaar and scriptwriter Shway Pyiaoe. 

Son of The Jungle stars a cast of internationally unknown actors and actresses which includes; Thiha Tin Soe, Hein Myat, Pan Ei Hune, and U Zaw Tin. Its main stars are an actor who plays Burmese Baboon Boy and an actress who plays Burmese Penelope. 

Is it a ripoff of the 1998 Jungle Boy movie? To play the devil’s advocate, it surely (kind of) resembles the 1998 movie, although it does feature elements from both Baboon Boy and Kenya Boy, plus M.P. Shankar's entertaining classics Kadina Rahasya and its sequel Kadina Raja. Otherwise it seems more closely based on Jungle King and Jungle Hunt, which are both popular arcade games by Taito. 

The story began when a young boy whom I dubbed Raja Chintu and his own parents were ambushed by gangsters, who would kill the mother and father, resulting in him becoming stranded in the Middle Burmese woods until a wise Asian elephant befriended him and picked him up for a ride through the jungle. 

Throughout the boy's childhood, the elephant mentored him to do chores and tricks, such as foraging for food and others. As Raja Chintu grew older, he became a half-naked wild boy clad in only a Burmese loincloth, riding on his older elephant friend and mentor.

Years later, Raja Chintu has almost become a young man, barely reaching 18 years old. He finds out about a group of moneygrubbing explorers capturing him for a circus exhibition, before rescuing a nearly drowning girl instead. The girl, aka Burmese Penelope, slowly starts to fall in love with him and his newfound lutung monkey friend. The explorers aren't amused, as they force him to dress up like a high school student when he comes back to the city of his birth. 

Raja Chintu has to survive a few weeks of indifference from haggling school bullies, grubby rich men and bad bosses amongst fellow members of his birth society, so much so that he snaps out and rips off his urban clothes. Only at the end will the plucky Penelope finally join him on his adventures, thanks to her father coming out as a surviving victim of an office scandal. 

The Son of the Jungle is so bad, it's undoubtedly one of the worst executed Tarzan clone movies ever. Mind you, the film does have a couple of entertaining moments and it's a far more mundane movie than its ultimate source materials, Baboon Boy and Kenya Boy.