Legendary explorer Thor Heyerdal's (Pal Hagen who gives a fabulous acting) epic 4,300-mile crossing of the Pacific on a Balsawood raft in 1947, in an effort prove that it was possible for South Americans to settle in Polynesia in pre-Columbian times . Heyerdal and his brave crew (Anders Baasmo Christiansen as Herman Watzinger , Tobias Santelmann as Knut Haugland , Odd Magnus Williamson as Erik Hesselberg , Jakob Oftebro as Torstein Raaby and Gustaf Skarsgård son of Stellan and brother of Alexander) carry out an incredible adventure en route Polynesia .

Awesome retelling about the dangerous adventure starred by Thor and a valiant group of heroes . Big budget production with gorgeous scenarios , colorful images , thrills , emotion and sense of style . Large parts of the film were filmed in two versions at the same time, one in Norwegian, the other in English, in order to secure international funding. Including wide participation from several nations , as there take part Sweden, Bulgaria , Norway , Malta , Maldives crews . Glamorous and glimmer cinematography by Geir Hartly Andreassen . Special mention to sensitive as well as evocative original Music by Johan Söderqvist . Lavishly produced among several countries such as UK | Norway | Denmark | Germany | Sweden with important financing by great producer Jeremy Thomas . The film's producer, Jeremy Thomas, had wanted to make the film since 1996 and was granted the rights to the story by Thor Heyerdahl before the latter's death in 2002 . The motion picture was compellingly directed by Joachim Rønning (Bandidas , Max Manus) and Espen Sandberg and it was the official submission of Norway to the Best Foreign Language Film of the 85th Academy Awards 2013.

The film was well based on real events , these are the followings : Kon-Tiki was the raft used by Norwegian explorer and writer Thor Heyerdahl in his 1947 expedition across the Pacific Ocean from South America to the Polynesian islands. It was named after the Inca sun god, Viracocha, for whom "Kon-Tiki" was said to be an old name. Kon-Tiki is also the name of Heyerdahl's book; the Academy Award-winning documentary film chronicling his adventures; and the 2012 dramatised feature film nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.Heyerdahl believed that people from South America could have settled Polynesia in pre-Columbian times. Although most anthropologists as of 2010 had come to the conclusion they did not, in 2011, new genetic evidence was uncovered by Erik Thorsby that Easter Island inhabitants do have some South American DNA, lending credence to at least some of Heyerdahl's theses. His aim in mounting the Kon-Tiki expedition was to show, by using only the materials and technologies available to those people at the time, that there were no technical reasons to prevent them from having done so. Although the expedition carried some modern equipment, such as a radio, watches, charts, sextant, and metal knives, Heyerdahl argued they were incidental to the purpose of proving that the raft itself could make the journey.The Kon-Tiki expedition was funded by private loans, along with donations of equipment from the United States Army. Heyerdahl and a small team went to Peru, where, with the help of dockyard facilities provided by the Peruvian authorities, they constructed the raft out of balsa logs and other native materials in an indigenous style as recorded in illustrations by Spanish conquerers. The trip began on April 28, 1947. Heyerdahl and five companions sailed the raft for 101 days over 6900 km (4,300 miles) across the Pacific Ocean before smashing into a reef at Raroia in the Tuamotu Islands on August 7, 1947. The crew made successful landfall and all returned safely.Thor Heyerdahl's book about his experience became a bestseller. It was published in Norwegian in 1948 as The Kon-Tiki Expedition: By Raft Across the South Seas, later reprinted as Kon-Tiki: Across the Pacific in a Raft. It appeared with great success in English in 1950, also in many other languages. A documentary motion picture about the expedition, also called Kon-Tiki was produced from a write-up and expansion of the crew's filmstrip notes and won an Academy Award in 1951. It was directed by Thor Heyerdahl and edited by Olle Nordemar. The voyage was also chronicled in the documentary TV-series The Kon-Tiki Man: The Life and Adventures of Thor Heyerdahl, directed by Bengt Jonson.The original Kon-Tiki raft is now on display in the Kon-Tiki Museum in Oslo.

I sought out this Norwegian film only after I learned that this was nominated for the Oscar for Best Foreign Language film. I only had a cursory knowledge of Thor Heyerdahl as a Norwegian explorer who wrote about his adventure at sea. However, I did not know any details at all about him or his journey. So I welcomed this opportunity to finally get to see it.

The film began with Thor as a child when he fell into the icy lake and almost drowned. However we later find out that that accident and his inability to swim did not deter his adventurous spirit. We fast forward to Thor and his wife Liv on Fatu Hiva, a Polynesian island, in 1937. There he learned the belief of the islanders that their ancestor Tiki actually came from the East (the Americas) instead of Asia as commonly assumed.

For several years, Thor tried to get his theory about Polynesian origins published but was repeatedly rejected. Therefore, he resolved to prove his theory by recreating Tiki's original ocean journey from Peru to Polynesia on a raft made of balsa wood (with strictly no modern materials).

It is just too coincidental that I am watching another ocean adventure just a few days after watching "Life of Pi." Kon-Tiki traveled the Pacific in the opposite direction that Pi did. It had an experienced though spare crew of 5, composed of two sailors, an engineer, an ethnographer and Thor, so it had a distinct advantage over the teenager and a tiger.

But maybe because I just watched Pi, maybe I expected to see so much more maritime misfortune than I did with Kon-Tiki. However, that sequence with vicious sharks had real heart-stopping suspense. I do have some misgivings about that episode with the whale shark, because it is not really the aggressive creature depicted in the film.

This was a straight-forward adventure film for the family. It may seem old-fashioned to some, nothing too controversial or strange as one can expect from modern European cinema. It was by no means boring, but I admit I felt like it lacked a certain edge while I was watching it. The crew members did not even have any significant conflict among each other and they were trapped on a raft for a hundred days! That may come across as unbelievable in these days of Big Brother and other "reality" TV shows.

I do hope I can find myself a copy of the 1950 Oscar-winning documentary about the real Thor Heyerdahl, his crew and their 101-day oceanic ordeal. That should be very interesting indeed.

"Kon-Tiki" is a HIGHLY unusual film. It was nominated for the Best Foreign Language Oscar--yet, it is a film that was made in two versions--English language and Norwegian! So, scene by scene, it was shot twice--with actors delivering their lines in both languages! As for the DVD, I was disappointed. The version I got from Netflix ONLY had the English language version and I could not compare them or choose the Norwegian language film. For most folks, this is not a problem--they'll prefer English. Plus, it is not (thank goodness) dubbed.

The film is about Thor Heyerdahl's famed Kon-Tiki expedition--where he demonstrated (in a TOTALLY insane way) that the Polynesians might have originally come from the Americas--not Asia. To do this, he and some fellow explorers constructed a balsa raft and traveled from Peru to Polynesia--a journey of thousands of miles.

This is a well made film--no doubt about it. However, perhaps I am not a great person to watch this one, as I found the film a bit dull once it moved from the planning stages to actually heading out to sea. I know what the men did WAS incredible--but it also reminded me of the last time I watched "Life of Pi" and I got a bit tired watching the raft portion.

By the way, in the final portion of the film, you have an epilogue which tells what happened to the men who made this journey. However, I was shocked by what it said about Heyerdahl, as it skipped discussing his subsequent INSANE ocean voyages--such as with the Ra and Ra II. An odd omission since he lived a life of adventure and was featured several times in 'National Geographic' for his voyages.