Lion: Docuseries Tracking Lion Cub’s Ascent to Adulthood Paws Its Way into Hearts

By Kim Hughes

Rating: B+

It’s certain that anyone watching the new four-part documentary series Lion will find themselves repeatedly shaking their heads and asking, “How on Earth did they get that shot? Surely, the lions and giraffes and zebras weren’t in on the production... were they?”

Such breathtaking visuals are perhaps to be expected from something helmed by National Geographic in Kenya with a crew including local filmmakers who logged nearly 1,400 filming days across 52 shoots in the field following a single pride of lions, and one very special lion in particular.

The logistics may be abstract but the alternately sweeping and intimate cinematography is astounding. And it is Lion’s most distinctive hallmark.

The series meticulously follows a cub named Kio over four years as he grows from tiny, mewling, eight-week-old furball entirely dependent on his mother to a majestically powerful adult capable of bringing down enormous buffaloes and fending off clans of giggling hyaenas while presiding over his piece of the Maasai Mara wilderness area.

If Kio’s extended pride did in fact know their daily activities were being chronicled, it’s not apparent. The lions captured here freely do what lions do as British-born actor and narrator O.J. Lynch — who, no coincidence, played Mufasa in a stage production of The Lion King, one of a few nods to the extended franchise — offers context on habitat and hierarchy plus challenges and trajectories.

Kio’s mother, brothers, and other relatives, as well as their eventual adult-lion nemeses, get ample screen time and backstory. Typical of nature documentaries though, not all outcomes are happy. But the filmmakers keep the anthropomorphizing mainly, if not entirely, in check. And the close-ups of the lions snuggling, snoozing, playing, hunting and traversing the landscape are indelible.

Appropriately, the series arrives with a pedigree: executive produced by live-action Lion King film director Jon Favreau and BBC Studios Natural History Unit’s creative director Mike Gunton (Planet Earth II, Dynasties), Lion features a score by Oscar-winning composer Hans Zimmer with his Bleeding Fingers Music composer collective.

(For those who really dig it, the original series soundtrack — which features additional vocals from the Nairobi Chamber Chorus — will be released through Hollywood Records on August 21 and will be available wherever music is streamed).

A press kit quote by Favreau sums up the experience nicely. “After tracking the lions in the field for four years, the pride never ceased to surprise us — what Kio endures and eventually becomes is extraordinary. Watching the hero's journey against the backdrop of nature was incredible to witness.”

It can also, at times, be slightly tedious as one becomes gently hypnotized by the beautiful but same-y images of African game frolicking across wide, largely featureless, sun-drenched plains. And lions sleep. A lot. But the ennui is fleeting and the rewards for perseverance are evident.

It is also worth noting that Disney, which premieres the first two episodes August 20, and the final two on August 27 on its Hulu subsidiary, “is continuing the ‘Protect the Pride’ campaign, supporting the Wildlife Conservation Network’s Lion Recovery Fund (LRF) and its partners working across Africa,” aiming to double the number of lions in the wild by 2050.

Since the launch of “Protect the Pride” in 2019, Disney reports investing more than $5 million in LRF, “whose network has helped support more than 400 conservation projects across 26 countries focused on stabilizing and recovering lion populations through locally led solutions.”

So yes, Lion looks spectacular and is feel-good, too. And while inevitable hunting scenes spare viewers the goriest glimpses of the kills and subsequent feasts, the series is probably still a bit too scary for very young viewers.

All viewers are warned that the omnipresence of flies on the faces of the lions is almost as annoying to observe as, presumably, it is to endure.

Lion. Executive Produced by Jon Favreau and Mike Gunton. With O.J. Lynch. Episodes 1 and 2 premiere August 20 on Hulu on Disney+ with two subsequent episodes airing August 27.