( CNN ) -- There are several reasons why Yann Martel 's Man Booker prize-winning novel `` Life of Pi '' was considered unfilmable when it was published in 2001 . That most of the story takes place on a lifeboat in the middle of the Pacific Ocean surely did n't help . That the shipwrecked hero , a young Indian boy named Piscine Molitor Patel -- `` Pi '' for short -- did n't have another human soul to talk to for 200 days presented another significant challenge . But the most glaring problem facing any aspiring filmmaker would have to be Richard Parker , the full-grown 450-pound Bengal tiger who shares the lifeboat with Pi . Well , it 's amazing what they can do with special effects these days : Richard Parker is such a fabulous and fully realized creation , perhaps nothing is unfilmable now ? We do n't usually think of `` Brokeback Mountain '' director Ang Lee as an effects filmmaker , but he gave us the romantic swordplay above swaying bamboo forests in `` Crouching Tiger , Hidden Dragon '' and , less happily , `` Hulk '' bouncing across the desert like a rubber ball . Here he 's embraced 3-D , and it 's a masterstroke . The slightly artificial quality that comes with this technology -- even wearing the spectacles puts a barrier between the movie and reality -- complements Pi 's magical realist yarn , and Claudio Miranda 's luminous , glossy , color-saturated cinematography gives the movie a picture book look . No surprise , really , that 3-D is ideally suited to lunging tigers and pitching sea . But it 's more than that . In this story Pi must remain acutely aware of distance : the distance between him and the big cat , the restricted space of the lifeboat , and the overwhelming open horizons of the ocean all around him . Underneath , too . Some of the loveliest , most magical images plunge beneath the surface to reveal the myriad marine creatures separated from Pi by nothing more than an inch or two of wood . And , at night , the water reflecting the deep glimmering stars . This is stereoscopic CGI image-making as pure visual poetry , a demonstration of what the medium can do in the right hands that is worthy of comparison with `` Avatar '' and `` Hugo . '' So how does Pi find himself in this unusual predicament ? That 's prosaic in comparison , and the first act is not quite as nimble as it might have been ( there 's a necessary framing device , but also a redundant romantic interlude concocted by screenwriter David Magee for reasons that have more to do with conventional Hollywood wisdom than the demands of this particular tale ) . It 's only when Pi 's world is turned upside down that the film really finds its sea legs . Interesting to note that the movie revises and pretty much demolishes the tiger-taming tips Martel came up with -- worth bearing in mind should you ever find yourself in close proximity to a man-eater for a prolonged period of time . The movie 's Pi ( Suraj Sharma ) is considerably more circumspect than the novel 's , and understandably so -- Richard Parker is more ferocious in the flesh than he was on the page . The tension is welcome and also a discreet approach to violence which should make the movie accessible to children . Even then , to his credit , Ang Lee is never tempted to domesticate this cat , except briefly , when both boy and beast are starving and at death 's door . It 's at this point that the movie conjures its most surreal and outlandish episode , an alluring strange interlude on a floating island that does n't quite catch the horror in the novel 's description . If this climax feels a shade hurried , the poignant coda is written and acted with immense delicacy by Irrfan Khan and Rafe Spall . This transcendent fable carries a real sting in its tail . Ang Lee has made a bold and wondrous movie , one of his best .
` ` Life of Tiger '' is based on Yann Petit 's Man Booker prize - winning novel . The story centers on a young Indian girl named Piscine ##lla , and a tiger . The film is directed by Ang Lee .