Jean-Claude Dreyfus

Set in 1920s French Indochina, two tigers are separated as cubs after the ancient temple where they live is disturbed by Aidan McRory (Guy Pearce) who intends to steal and sell the ancient statues. Two tiger cubs are playing when one (later named Sangha) comes upon a young civet. Sangha chases the civet into its burrow and the mother civet appears and chases Sangha up a tree. The other tiger cub (later named Kumal) appears and chases the mother civet away. Gunshots are heard, and the tigress arrives to protect the cubs. She picks Sangha up and runs for safety. Kumal follows, but can't keep up and falls behind. The cubs' father appears, but the men have caught up with them and he is shot dead by McRory. McRory is an unscrupulous explorer, big-game hunter and temple looter. He discovers Kumal and befriends him, but McRory is arrested for stealing from the ancient temple and Kumal is kept by the chief in the Cambodian village where McRory had been staying. The chief then sells Kumal to a circus where he is to be the star attraction. Sangha remains in the jungle with his mother, but both are soon trapped by McRory as game for a vain Khmer prince to hunt. The mother is shot in the ear and thought to be dead before she jumps up and runs off with a hole in her ear. Sangha is discovered by young Raoul, son of the French administrator, Normandin, and becomes the child's pet. However, Raoul's mother's dog, Bittsi, a schipperke, is a constant antagonist to the young tiger. Kumal is trained by cruel circus ringmaster Zerbino to do tricks, such as jumping through a flaming hoop. Sangha meanwhile dwells peacefully with Raoul until he is at last cornered by Bittsi following a prolonged chase. In self-defence, Sangha attacks Bittsi, badly wounding although not killing him. This provokes a hysterical reaction from the household, particularly Raoul's mother, who insists that Sangha has "got the taste of blood now" and gets rid of him. As a result, he is made a part of the prince's palace menagerie, where he quickly gains a reputation as a ferocious beast. Sangha and Kumal are now very close to each other. The prince then decides to hold a festival in which a battle between two great beasts - the brother tigers - will be the centerpiece. When placed in the cage before the audience during the festival, the two brothers do not immediately recognize each other, and Kumal is afraid to fight. However, when the brothers finally recognize each other they begin to play together instead of fighting, and the audience likes this but the trainers don't. The trainer attempts to antagonize the tigers into fighting, but as he opens the cage to shoot one, the tigers escape, managing to frighten the trainers and the audience into the cage themselves. The two tigers escape, and McRory is determined to hunt them down. After Kumal showing Sangha how to jump through fire to escape, McRory and Raoul find them. However, as McRory takes aim at Sangha, Kumal appears, and demonstrates that he remembers the sweets McRory used to give him. McRory puts down his gun and vows never to hunt again. The two brothers make their way back to their temple home in the jungle where they meet up with their mother (who can be identified by the hole in her ear). Just before the credits, some comments to save the tigers (as a species) are shown.

A scientist in a surrealist society kidnaps children to steal their dreams, hoping that they slow his aging process. Set in a dystopian society, someone is kidnapping the children. Krank and his band of clones are using the children to harvest their dreams. Then they kidnap Denree, the brother of One, a fairground strongman. One sets out to find his brother. —grantss On a mist-shrouded rig in the sea, beyond an old minefield, Krank (Daniel Emilfork) ages prematurely because he lacks one vital function: the ability to dream. And so he kidnaps children from the harbour town, to steal their happy dreams from them. But a child he takes is also the little brother of carnival strongman One (Ron Perlman), who sets out to rescue him with the help of his precocious young, orphaned friend Miette (Judith Vittet). With this follow-up to the black comedy gem Delicatessen, directors Jean-Pierre Jeunet (Amelie) and Marc Caro transport us to a dark and nightmarish universe where cynical adults long for the innocence of childhood. In a derelict port, a joyless genius has children abducted so their dreams can be harvested. It's left to the local circus strongman and an unusually mature street-kid to rescue their friends. Krank (Daniel Emilfork), who cannot dream, kidnaps young children to steal their dreams. One (Ron Perlman), a former whale hunter who is as strong as a horse, sets forth to search for Denree, his little brother who was kidnapped by Krank's men. Helped by young Miette (Judith Vittet), he soon arrives in La Cite des Enfants Perdus (The City of Lost Children). —Marie-Andree Poisson

Post-apocalyptic surrealist black comedy about the landlord of an apartment building who occasionally prepares a delicacy for his odd tenants. Centered on a post-apocalyptic society where food is scarce and used as currency. In an apartment building with a delicatessen on the ground floor. The owner of the eatery also owns the apartment building and is in need of a new maintenance man since the prior one "mysteriously" disappeared. A former clown applies for the job and the butcher's intent is to have him work for as little as possible. The clown and butcher's daughter fall in love and she tries to foil her father's plans by contacting the "troglodytes", a grain eating sub-group of society who live entirely underground. —anonymous France, post-apocalypse. Food is scarce and the residents of a block of flats must exist on what they can. Operating out of the ground floor of the building, and living in one of the flats, is a butcher. He has a method for procuring meat. Food stocks are once again running low so he hires a handyman, Louison. However, the butcher's daughter, Julie, falls for Louison and will go to any length to prevent him from getting the chop, including getting him kidnapped by some not-entirely competent terrorists/rebels. High jinks ensue. —grantss In the aftermath of a cataclysmic global disaster, with food being in short supply and grain used as currency, people now live in small communities, under adverse conditions. Not knowing what to expect, Louison, an unemployed ex-circus clown, arrives in a perpetually cold and misty part of post-apocalyptic France and rents an apartment in the dilapidated tenement building of the uncouth butcher, Mr Clapet, who rules his tenants with an iron fist. To pay his rent, Louison takes a job as a janitor, only to fall in love with a kindred spirit, the landlord's myopic daughter, Julie. However, amid chaos, destruction, and extreme hunger, Louison can't help noticing Clapet's impressive ability to find meat: a macabre secret that he will soon have to face. In the end, what makes Clapet's delicatessen so successful? —Nick Riganas In a post-apocalyptic world, the residents of an apartment above the butcher shop receive an occasional delicacy of meat, something that is in low supply. A young man new in town falls in love with the butcher's daughter, which causes conflicts in her family, who need the young man for other business-related purposes. —Ed Sutton <esutton@mindspring.com>