Watching 'The Lion Hunt' is a weird, dusty trip

Is this for you?

If you like old, grainy footage and have a high tolerance for colonial-era attitudes, you might find this interesting. If you’re looking for a tight story or something that moves quickly, you will probably hate it. It’s a relic, plain and simple. 🦁

There is no big dramatic reveal here. It’s just a bunch of guys in the African bush trying to catch a lion that got a bit too hungry for cattle. It feels more like a home movie from a very expensive, very dangerous vacation than a polished piece of cinema.

The Rhythm of the Hunt

The pacing is… well, there isn't much. It’s mostly just watching people walk through tall grass. Sometimes they stop to look at footprints. Then they walk some more. It’s honestly kind of hypnotic if you let your brain turn off for a bit.

Cinematic perspective: Exploring the visual vocabulary of Adventures in Africa No. 3: The Lion Hunt (1931) through its definitive frames.

There’s this one shot where they’re setting up a trap and it goes on for, I swear, an eternity. You can see the dust kicking up in the light, and for a second, I forgot what they were even doing. It felt more like watching No Parking, just staring at static surfaces and waiting for something—anything—to shift.

A Different Kind of Viewing

It’s hard to ignore how different this is from something like The Cowboy and the Lady, where everything is polished and performative. Here, nobody is acting. They’re just sweaty and squinting at the sun. It’s raw, but not in the way you’d expect from a modern thriller.

There are moments where the camera just wanders off, like the person holding it got distracted by a bird or a weird branch. I kind of liked that. It makes the whole thing feel less like a project and more like a document of someone actually being there.

• The lion itself is barely on screen, which is honestly probably better.
• The silence is heavy. There’s no big dramatic music score to tell you how to feel.
• I spent most of the runtime wondering how they got the gear out there in the first place.

It’s not a masterpiece, and it doesn't try to be. It’s just a weird, dusty window into the past. Don't go in expecting Murder Will Out-level excitement. Just take it for what it is: a very long, very hot afternoon in the grass. 🏜️