User Reviews

When I saw this movie, I thought that this would definitely not be as good as the novel by Jack London. The book White Fang was amazing, and a fantastic book. Well, this was not as good as the book, and it was not close to it at all. Still, this was a great movie, but like I said in my summary, I like Iron Will just a bit better.

The acting was very well-done to tell you the truth. You could actually believe the actors. The direction was also very good. Some scenes could be beautiful, some scenes could be gritty. Unfortunately, like all of these family movies, some scenes could be cheesy, and there was a handful of scenes that were cheesy. Still, with all of these pros and just a couple cons, this is a fantastic movie that the whole family can enjoy.

7/10

Recommended Films: Iron Will.

In the 1890's, Jack heads to the Yukon territory to investigate his late father's gold claim. He finds a beautiful but harsh and unforgiving environment, and meets White Fang, a wolf/dog half-breed with whom his destiny will intertwine ...

I read Jack London's wonderful book White Fang when I was ten years old and found it a very profound experience. Unlike most animal stories, it does not anthropomorphise its protagonist into a moral or heroic figure, but rather tries to present a narrative realistically from an animal's perspective (as Richard Adams did in his books later). This to me was a real revelation; nature is presented as cruel and relentless, there is no room for stupidity or weakness, yet White Fang's courage and nobility come from his inner strength as well as his physical prowess. It's just a really great tale, a heady mixture of action, travelogue and frontier history about man's relationship with nature. This Disney adaptation abridges and rearranges some of the events but remains extremely faithful to the novel's essence and doesn't shy away from the more brutal and heartbreaking elements of the story. On a technical level it is excellent; shot in the Alaskan boroughs of Haines and Skagway where the novel is set (and where London was inspired to write it), with beautiful landscapes by British cameraman Tony Pierce-Roberts. The countryside, with its ice floes, pine forests, majestic mountains and sparkling creeks is not just part of the story, it really is the story. Combined with Basil Poledouris' fantastic score it makes the far-off place and time come to life with breathtaking immediacy and beauty. There's another reason however why this film should not be missed and it's one of the cast. The human actors are all fine - Hawke is a good goodie and Remar is a good baddie, but the real star is Jed the dog, who plays the eponymous hero. Jed, like the part he plays, was a real life half-breed, part Alaskan Malamute, part wolf, and unlike most animal actors, who for the most part do tricks on cue, actually gives a real performance. He's very still, and behind his eyes he's both wild and intelligent, always thinking. There are amazing scenes, like the one where he builds a trust with Jack by gradually coming closer to him, shot in two or three incredible takes, and he's an incredibly beautiful animal to look at, but he does more than that, somehow inhabiting the character completely. White Fang is an outcast; dogs hate him because of his wolf half, people recoil in fear and yet he doesn't have a pack to run with. He's alone and his loneliness mirrors Jack's and ours. Jed somehow embodies all of this, partly via his training and the filmmakers' skill, but mostly through simply being. If you don't think animals can act, check this out and you will be converted. For bonus points, there's also a great scene featuring Bart The Bear, a huge Kodiak grizzly who is memorable in several other films (notably Legends Of The Fall and The Edge). A truly great family adventure movie from the pen of one of America's greatest writers - please read the book too (as well as London's earlier The Call Of The Wild) - which thrills and entertains us but also gently reminds us always to respect the beauty and savagery of our world.

I wasn't expecting much from a "family movie" that was awarded only two stars out of four by my TV guide but it's really quite well done. The location shooting in Haynes and Skagway, Alaska, is stunning. The narrative is clear -- parallel stories of a wolfish dog and a young man that come together at the end. Fine performances by everyone concerned. The dog wrangler should get a medal. Jed, who plays the dog, White Fang, deserves an academy award, and Bart the Bear does too for best supporting character. This may be the best adaptation of a Jack London novel that's ever been done.

Jack London himself was quite a character in the early 1900s. He was an oyster pirate in Oakland, traveled to Asia, lived in the artists' colony at Carmel, and made his way to Alaska during one of its periodic gold rushes. He later took to hard dope and died at an early age but before that, he produced some marvelously evocative stuff. His sketch of a ferry crossing from San Francisco to Sausalito in a heavy fog could have been described yesterday instead of 1904.

That ferry crossing is the opening of "The Sea Wolf," which may show his talent at its best -- until the love interest is introduced, at which point the writing plunges into purple. His short story, "To Build a Fire," is the first short story I remember reading in high school and I was duly impressed.

"White Fang" is equally gripping. The movie, not the story, which I haven't read. I did manage to run across an excerpt some years ago -- the scene in which White Fang gently closes his jaws around Jack's forearm and signal mute acceptance of their bond. It's a touching moment in a story filled with touching moments.

"White Fang", alas, has a stereotypical villain in James Remar, a fine actor. He's the bad guy who cons an Indian out of the dog and taunts the dog constantly to keep him angry enough to win the illegal dog fights that Remar has entered him into. The Indians didn't treat dogs with any familiarity. They weren't pets. They were work animals and did what they were told. "We are their gods," says Grey Beaver. They were indifferent but not cruel.

Klaus Maria Brandauer deserves applause too. He's an admirable actor whose career may have been stymied by his unprepossessing looks. His eyes are slanted at an odd angle that gives him a sort of feline expression. But he gets the job done and, as Jack the novice, Ethan Hawke pulls his weight, so to speak.

Alaska is great. Four time zones. And in the summer the sun never quite sets, yet everything stops just as if night had fallen. The birds stop singing, the forest and the towns quiet down, and everything seems asleep although it's sunny enough for rainbows to form at three in the morning.

Dogs are great too. They evolved from European jackals and were domesticated in Europe about 20,000 years ago. It's doubtful that they were pets. They were helpmates, as they were to Jack London's Indians, helping to trap large game animals, guarding the camp against intruders, perhaps saddled with packs, and living on scraps of food. They're social animals. They hunted in packs. That's probably why they're so much easier to "read" than cats, who were solitary predators.

Anyway, a nice job.

I remember I read the book when I was a kid and I liked it very much. Now that i've seen the film I clearly remembered some of the events from the book (like the last stand in the woods against the hungry wolfs or the dog fights in the town). The ending was definitely different in the book, although i can't remember exactly how it was.

This is a pretty good film. I especially liked the nature scenes and the superb Alaskan landscapes, but also the relationship between the boy and his dog/wolf friend. It does have a few boring scenes (involving small talk between humans), but since it's not a very long movie it shouldn't be a problem.

POSSIBLE SPOILERS After reading both of Jack London's novels CALL OF THE WILD and WHITE FANG in that order, I felt it necessary to see the film again since I hadn't seen it for years.

Expecting nothing but a regurgitated clone of lassie from the mouse house, I was pleasantly surprised to find that the film followed the storyline in its own right (though with some flaws).

We start it in the Klondike Gold rush in the Yukon in Canada with Jack Conroy (Ethan Hawke pre-beard) arriving in the Yukon. He joins with a couple of old friends of his father to join in heading for their claim. At the same time, a young wolf cub is being brought up in the wilderness by his mother who, in a sequence concerning Conroy (Hawke) is shot and injured when she tries to lure one of Conroy's friend's dogs away to attack (and undoubtedly eat).

And now comes the tarnishing part of the film that is the one part that I loathe and despise. She drags herself back to her cub before dying in front of him and leaving him to fend for himself in the wilderness. It's very frustrating to see Disney resort to the Bambi-esquire cliché of killing off the mummy to tug at the heartstrings, especially since there's no evidence of this in the book, his mother was actually an important character, and not to forget that most of us will have seen it all before! The sequence in the book that this campfire part is based on, was before White Fang was even born, and the gradual growing climax that it built in the Jack London novel is terrifying! (Though I suppose that has no place in a Disney film.) If you intend to read the book, I won't spoil it for you!

Afterwards, Conroy comes across the pup in certain circumstances where he has been taken in by the Indians and changes hands to take part in illegal dog-fighting before winding up in the hands of Conroy to rehabilitate him. These plot lines follow fairly accurately to the original London novel, albeit with some deviations, e.g: White Fang's mother was called Kiche and was taken in by the Indians, only to be separated from White Fang when she was sold to another Indian, Jack Conroy never appeared in the book, though he is similar to Weedon Scott's character in the novel.

The ending to White Fang was bugged with one or two clichés, in that with a gold claim freshly unearthed and ready to leave for California, he lets him "free" because "he'd be miserable in a city" though White Fang went TO a new urban home later. We're not too sure why Jack decides to stay in the wilderness either, especially when there's a new life as a rich man in California waiting, except for White Fang to return to him and for them to be reunited (as they are) and a possible instinct of this happening, but it's not very well explained.

It's also totally different to that of the ending of the book (that ends in California in the same way Call of the Wild starts there), but before I condemn it, I still have some praise for it being not so lassie-esquire to the effect of being nauseating, satisfying in its own right and closing the story nicely.

Perplexingly though, the end tacks on a concluding text from the Defenders of Wildlife that says that "JACK LONDON'S White Fang is a work of fiction. There has never been a documented case of a healthy wolf or pack of wolves attacking a human in North America. Because wolves were systematically eliminated throughout most of the United States during our early history and continue to be persecuted today, a nationwide effort is underway to reintroduce wolves into wilderness areas and insure their survival for generations to come." Firstly, White Fang is set in Canada (sorry to be picky but people may still think that wolves have attacked people elsewhere).

Secondly, I don't see why the film needs an epilogue like this - it isn't a nature documentary, it's a story! Maybe this is because the film is from 18 years ago when people were more prejudiced about wolves, and though I think wolves are great animals and it is important to protect them, it seems unnecessary to tack this information on at the end!

In general, I would recommend this film, whether you've read the book or not. Despite the faults I've listed and the Godawful Bambi-style rubbish, White Fang does have its saving graces. The relationship between Conroy and White Fang is excellently portrayed, and quite poignantly acted by Hawke and Jed the wolf (or wolf-dog, whichever one he falls into). The backdrops of Canada in both Spring and Winter are nothing short of breathtaking, and combined with the settings of the late 19th Century, put us in a real and harsh, but beautiful world that draws you in. If you've read the book, then remember it's Disney and they are liable to changing story material for film-making. Just don't take it too seriously.

I wouldn't touch MYTH OF THE WHITE WOLF with a 10 ft fishing pole, though!

I wanted to give this film a chance. First, the acting is far from memorable. The screenplay is childish and silly in parts. It completely misses the essence of the book which was graphic and heart wrenching. Re-written to the point it only vaguely resembles the book. There's a reason it's not been made into an major film. Almost the entire novel, 90%, takes place within White Fang's mind. How a wolf sees the world; unable to understand human speech and human behavior. His life is pain, bitterness and above all, hate. Not Disney material so they chuck 70% of London's plot out the window. In the book Salvation came only at the end with Weedon Scott, a major character absent in the movie. I get it. "Jack" replaces several characters; three, I think. Anyway... could be mildly entertaining for a family movie night. The kids might like it but probably won't ever ask to watch it again. I'm

Set in the frozen wilderness and frontier towns of the Yukon Territory at the height of Klondike Gold Rush in the late 1890's, Randal Kleiser's "White Fang" (1991) is above all a story of love and friendship between two young orphans: Jack Conroy, played by a fresh-faced but precociously talented Ethan Hawke, and White Fang, a lone gray wolf.

Loosely based on the classic Jack London novel of the same name, "White Fang" is as eager and hopeful a film as Jack is when he touches shore in the Yukon Valley. But no sooner is Jack mugged by reality in the shape of a sly and malicious Beauty Smith (played a finely villainous James Remar) and his two cronies, than Kleiser begins to unveil the unyielding, unpitying hardness of nature, starting with the shooting death of a she-wolf, mother to the wolf pup White Fang.

The story of the film is a journey in more ways than one, and Jack's journey closely parallels White Fang's in spirit and tone. Both are recently orphaned survivors, vital spirits in a barren landscape. Jack's challenges start as soon as he lands: a new land, both harsh and majestic, with potentially unlimited wealth awaiting the lucky and the industrious. The difficult conditions are compounded by the reason for Jack's sojourn: though he claims to want only to work his father's claim, he clearly, ultimately, seeks to redeem his father's death.

As their stories progress and Jack and White Fang eventually find each other, their fraternal/paternal relationship seems to take the place of the their absent parents. They care and look out for each other and at different times, rescue each other from certain death. Kindred spirits, both were forced to grow up quickly and they take on the odds of survival with pluck and, mostly, good humor.

The photography of "White Fang" matches the beauty of the arctic landscape: underground lakes and grottos, ice caves and vast expanses of snow framed by distant mountain ranges. Cinematographer Tony Pierce-Roberts's impressive use of the wide shot – in some instance with the sled team slicing across the screen, perfectly channel the adventurist spirit of the time and the place. Like Jack, it's hard for us not to be completely swept away by the wide open scenes of nature at its purest. Pierce-Robert's dramatic crane shots, from slow, intimate creeps to quickly rising booms are also beautifully choreographed.

According to Kleiser, the film was storyboard from first shot to last. Given that so many scenes involved wolves or wolf-dogs of varying degrees of tameness and training (as well as an astonishing cameo by Bart the Bear in a fight scene) this was a wise decision. Because of the limitations inherent in filming under these conditions, Kleiser bravely relied on the pure visual grammar of film language to tell the characters' story. His economy of shots, matching eye lines, composition and distribution of elements in the screen space were carefully thought out and intelligently, if not painstakingly, executed.

On a personal level, I found watching "White Fang" to be a touching, even moving experience, and only very momentarily sentimental. In fact, the director's reserve in not allowing the material to move into maudlin sentimentality is to be admired and appreciated. This reserve is the mark of a great observer.

Successful sound design elements also contribute to the film's faithful and creative re-creation of its sensory world: at tense moments like when the ice is cracking under Jack's feet, or when we hear a heartbeat-like thudding in more hallucinatory scenes, as when Gray Beaver of the Han tribe finds little White Fang caught in a game trap. I also very much enjoyed the majestic soundtrack, with its resonant symphonic score: horns, strings, and unusually, wind instruments working together in resonant and harmonic ways to make Jack and White Fang's story truly great storytelling.

Finally, the film's faithful and evocative re-creations of the historical era, from the stock photos and maps of the opening credits to the impressive outdoor sets of the Klondike towns, combined with a refined instinct for storytelling, magnificent locations, well-directed actors (including a small, delightful role by the great Seymour Cassel!) and disciplined choreography make "White Fang" a great film experience.

Great story well done about a wolf/dog and his caretaker.the Yukon a pristine wilderness was captured well in this film. Ethan Hawk was pretty young actor in this film, klaus Maria branhauser is a good supporting member.. Jed the dog was fantastic portraying white fang. A true tale of the life between a man and his dog and the vicious cruelty of other greedy men in the late 1880's mining for gold. Even the Eskimo was harsh on the dog seeing him as loyal servant to help him with his traps and nothing else. Jack however trains white fang with love him to be his pet. The greedy dog gamblers get him and torture white fangvto be a trained killer, but love and loyalty wins the day.

Based on the novel with the same name by American author Jack London, the film follows the book's eponymous character, a wild wolf-dog hybrid. The story begins with our star Jack (played by Ethan Hawke) who is searching for his deceased father's claim in the 1890's. Most of the film involves Jack and his new partner Alex (played by Klaus Maria Brandauer) overcoming various challenges and hostility from both animals and people until they do eventually make it to his father's claim and the journey was well worth it. The acting is very solid from everyone all involved and even though at times it can be quite violent (for the animals at least) you can't help but be astounded by the production values and amount of time they must have spent training these animals up to produce such realistic fight scenes.

Finally, this is definitely an enjoyable film to watch for both children and adults with some of the most beautiful scenic photography I have ever seen!

The backgrounds of wolf dog and his new owner and the owner's partner (Beautifully played by Claus Maria Brandauer) explore unlikely relationships that form in a turn of the century Yukon environment which is raw and difficult. The boy becomes a man, the wolf-dog becomes a loyal friend of the young boy, and the partner becomes mature and sentimental - all changes against a glorious mountain backdrop.. The American Humane Society approved the many action scenes, some of them very violent, in which the dog and other less friendly dogs appear. The criminals are taken to the Royal Mounties, the boy stays with his wolf dog, the partner goes off with the bar owner after boy, dog and partner find a mine full of raw gold. It's a classic old movie with boy and dog as an unexpectedand wonderful team. What a beautiful dog!

A few tears. Great!

As a film in itself, it's not bad. The story portrayed in the film follows the classic example of an animal film.

But as an adaptation of the book by Jack London,it leaves much to be desired. Key areas are missed out entirely, or shrunk to a minor aspect of the film. While some of the original feel of the book is preserved, the relationship between Jack and White Fang is stretched out for the entire film, whilst in the book it only comes about in the last 1/4 of the book. The scenes with Beauty Smith when White Fang acts as a fighting dog are some of the few that remain true to the book.

White Fang's early life is completely different to the book, his life with Grey Beaver is not shown or referenced at all, except for a few minutes of screen time.

The battle between Beauty Smith's gang, and Jack and Alex, seems to have been completely invented by the script writers. The ending in the film likewise also seems to be made up.

If you have read the book, I wouldn't watch it and expect great things.