Every year, thousands of Antarctica's emperor penguins make an astonishing journey to breed their young. They walk, marching day and night in single file 70 miles into the darkest, driest and coldest continent on Earth. Morgan Freeman narrates this amazing, true-life tale touched with humour and alive with thrills. Breathtaking photography captures the transcendent beauty and staggering drama of devoted parent penguins who, in the fierce polar winter, take turns guarding their egg and trekking to the ocean in search of food. Predators hunt them, storms lash them. But the safety of their adorable chicks makes it all worthwhile. So follow the leader ... to adventure!!
Birth, death, romance, danger: All play a role in Jacquet's homage to a remarkably endearing creature.
– Damon Smith,
Time Out New York,
16 Aug 2007
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This astonishing film, shot in the Antarctic, captures sights never seen before.
– David Ansen,
Newsweek,
1 Nov 2007
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French director Luc Jacquet and a team of incredibly brave (and heavily bundled) documentary filmmakers captured this complicated mating ritual with strikingly crisp photography that's both grand and intimate.
– Christy Lemire,
Associated Press,
5 Aug 2013
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Some of the eggs and chicks freeze, and the parents' cries are painful to hear (probably more for us than for them).
– J. R. Jones,
Chicago Reader,
5 Aug 2013
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Watch them march to the very extremes of extremis, though, and it's easy to feel awe. Life must beget life, whatever the cost.