The mission

First, to those complaining this is "too Christian", it's anything but. This documentary tries to ride the line and show multiple sides, but it leans heavier to the "he was misguided" side with some strong digs toward evangelicals and missionary work in general. It is anything but sympathetic to mission work and goes out of its way to highlight all the "damage" done by missionaries, or at the very least, the wasted efforts (by interviewing a missionary turned atheist).

I appreciated the various points of view and the attempt to be impartial, but several things gummed up this documentary.

The animation was not appealing to me. I would have preferred re-enactments or a different animation style. It seemed cheap and cheesy at times, though still effective and better than nothing.

The editing was confusing, leaving me wondering what the point of the documentary was. For a documentary about such a focused and driven (misguided or not) young man, the film it self was far less confident and focused, meandering from non-commitment, to moments of sympathy, then on to scathing appraisals of disagreement, and finally landing with an awkward sense of off-balance closure with a religious, but non-Christian, poem by the dad.

I felt like this film tried to be something everyone could appreciate, but ended up being something that probably won't please the skeptics or the believers. We might assume that's the expected outcome of neutral journalism, but it felt too cobbled together and forced to seem relevant.

The information was fascinating, but the film, for me, was disappointing.

The podcast Behind the B has an incredible series on this event and the history of colonialist and neighboring people involving themselves with the very unwilling North Sentinelese people that was very informative and interesting and made it very clear that these people want to be left alone and reinforcing that what Chau did was reckless, stupid, arrogant and selfish. I highly recommend the podcast if you want to actually learn about what happened, including what John did in the lead up to going to the island that helped him rationalize his decision. This documentary is borderline harmful in glorifying this man and treating him like a dreamer with a calling instead of a selfish moron while making the people he endangered take a back seat to this wannabe colonialist.

It's really a story that we all know about.

But the real question is how it's told.

The storytelling, for me, was pretty average. I like the live-action bit, but it did not blow my mind for sure. I wish the interviews had more depth. I like that they tried to humanise Chau - a brilliant but dumb kid who wants to "save" the world from Hell and pave the way for Jesus' return. However, his dad's mournful letter cannot be the sole reason for me to empathise with Chau. I wish the filmmakers tried digging deeper into his life.

Also, how can you give TN Pandit such little screen time? And how can you miss the incredible Madhumala Chattopadhyay in this documentary that revolves around North Sentinel? Wish it was extensively researched and showed the Indian perspective.

What a horrible doc. This could have been so interesting but they spent 90% of it on his background and 10% on the actual mission. What a waste.

How do the filmmakers not realize what is interesting about this story? It isn't John, or his father's journal. An hour in, and we're still nowhere near him actually attempting to go to the island. Then they just skate through that part, completely leaving out the most interesting details of the story.

Man, this was frustrating. Complete and total waste of time. You will learn more about north sentinel and this story from five minutes on Wikipedia. Hopefully someone remakes this story properly.

I read the story of John Chai before. Yes, he was someone's son and a lot of people's friend. But frankly... He was an a$$hole. He could have killed those poor people. There should have been ZERO perspective told from any evangelicals. There shouldn't be any validation that what he did was remotely acceptable. This kid has a messiah complex and caused nothing but pain and suffering to his parents and friends. The disgusting sermon in the end shouldn't have even been featured. To sum things up.. "Whether it's a sweet tribal tattoo or being killed by an isolated indigenous tribe, you just messed up the family Christmas photo"