Drod

Tarzan: Jangoler Sher

Hello everyone, please let me introduce this recent Tarzan Mockbuster made and distributed by a regionally mainstream film company from West Bengal in India. 

Released late in 2023, the film is known as Tarzan: Jangoler Sher, which rough means Tarzan: Jungle Master (Jungle Lion) in Bengali, and was directed by Ashtam Dutta for film distributor Echo Films Entertainment. It stars the little known West Bengali actors Ditipriya, Ahantanu, Srijan, Nandini, Malay, Indranil and Biki as a cast of daringly loopy characters in a crazy Mockbuster, which follows in the footsteps of the steamier, more well known Adventures of Tarzan in MockBuster infamy for decades to come. 

The star of the film is a West Bengali Tarzan raised by Gorillas (just like his German counterpart in Dingo Pictures’ own Lord of the Jungle), and there’s a cheap 2d knockoff of Disney’s own take on Jane Porter, who instead is a budding photographer! Still, there’s not only the West Bengali Turchak and West Bengali Kala (who are both Tarzan’s adoptive parents) but also the equally poorly drawn West Bengali variants of Tantor, Mungo, Flynt and a pale skinned Caucasian Esmeralda. Unexpectedly, there is also a major monster in this movie, coming straight out of Tarzan the Terrible, scaring the heck out of discount Mungo and Flynt, (inspired by his live action counterpart in Jungle Love Story) being a creepier character than the rest. 

Is it a tasteless knockoff? It may be a tasteless, low budget-looking Kiddy matinee from a regional Indian film distributor, but even in spite of its many scenes (and especially its thumbnails) being stolen from both the first Jungle Emperor tv show and two of the Disney Tarzan movies, it’s a lot like Dingo Pictures’ own Lord of the Jungle, in which it’s both a hilariously bad stinker and a bus-honking peep fest, aiming more at the preteen crowd than Golden Films’ own Tarzan of the Apes. 

The story began when a helicopter crashed through the Ugandan Bwindi jungle, meaning that the West Bengali Tarzan lost his parents when he was just a baby boy. A grumpy middle aged gorilla dad, the West Bengali Kerchak (an expy of both Disney’s take on Kerchak and the novels’ own Akut), had to save him from both the helicopter’s burning remains and the machinations of a hungry old snakelike monster, whom the child would destroy years later. With some help from West Bengali Turchak’s wife Kala, it’s thanks to a rather hopeful deer that the gorilla dad introduced the human baby boy to a community of jungle animals, such as a rowdy crowd of elephants, monkeys and fellow gorillas. 

Let’s move fast into the time when the little West Bengali Tarzan was starting to make friends with the trouser pooper knockoffs of Mungo and Flynt, and so at nighttime he had to fend for himself from a frigging little orange monster! The West Bengali Kala might as well be really proud that her adoptive son would start to do self defence for years.  

As he grows older, the West Bengali Tarzan and his two gorilla friends (West Bengali Mungo and Flynt) finally found a new neighbour in West Bengali Tantor. Meanwhile, a bunch of rather stereotypical North Tollywood (named for Tollygunge in West Bengal, itself far northeast of Hyderabad in what’s now Telangana) Safari natives would do a critter hunt, if only because they’re kinda unhappy with both a rather seedy corporate owner and their unseen, perhaps equally corrupt government, which meant that if not for Tarzan’s bravery, they would rather kidnap poor old discount Mungo and Flynt and turn them into bushmeat. 

When he became a bratty preteen, the meek-looking West Bengali Tarzan was training for more self defence from the West Bengali Sheeta! Later on, he would find the now burnt remains of not only a helicopter but also an intact hunting knife likely owned by both his birth parents. 

Years later, Tarzan’s now a brave ass teenager, complete with a frigging wild Tarzan yell! He ensured that his butt violin friends remained safe not only from the cranky old snakelike monster, but also from too much habitat loss. Meanwhile, two rather greedy, hooning traders would come to Tarzan’s jungle not just to capture critters for zoos and circuses but also log the goddamn trees, so they’d kidnap the teenaged West Bengali Tarzan out of comical spite. Anyways, the rebelling young teen would escape the frigging truck with the help of his critter friends. 

Fast forward into the time when the two traders (the ginger trader and the brunette trader) are still there, but an older and wiser Tarzan will always be the hero he is. He meets West Bengali Jane Porter as she chases a rather skittish bird, who in turn flies away. Then again, he just wants to make sure that with patience, she also slowly falls in love with him as both may also realise that the two finking traders are just punch clock villains working for a rather unconstrained, nutty greater scope villain. 

Even near the end, it’s becoming clear that the story’s true villain turns out to be a CEO making too much money from evicting both the hapless creatures and the dissatisfied natives in a strange old cultural finking purge. To make things rather sadder, the creepy mid-sized purple monster spooked the unlucky ginger trader (who turns out to be West Bengali Jane’s somewhat dimwitted dad) off to the point of dying, which suggests that a saddened West Bengali Jane Porter will rather go home to attend her dead dad’s funeral with her babysitter, the West Bengali Esmeralda. 

Despite its somewhat tedious writing and perhaps even more mawkish animation execution, The West Bengali Tarzan: Jangoler Sher is actually slightly more faithful to the first Tarzan book in particular than the two live action Bangladeshi Tarzan movies, Boner Raja Tarzan and Jungle Diper Tarzan, which both came out many years before! 

In fact it’s such a bittersweet yet insanely funny-bad regional Indian take on the Tarzan mythos, that the nostalgic Vijay Benedict style Tarzan yell has also become a mainstay of it all. Hoo boy, such an otherwise newish film still has rather stereotypical natives. That being said, they thankfully are somewhat more sympathetic than in the original Tarzan novels written by Edgar Rice Burroughs. 

Tellingly still, (I do think) it’s not quite as nightmarishly unattractive as Jungle Diper Tarzan, which unfortunately remains the most in name only Tarzan film on record. 

Milo

Dila