Christian the lion - Full ending

In 1969 a young Australian, John Rendall and his friend Ace Bourke, bought a small lion cub from Harrods pet department, which was then legal. 'Christian' was kept in the basement of a furniture shop on the Kings Road in Chelsea, the heart of the swinging sixties. Loved by all, the affectionate cub ate in a local restaurant, played in a nearby graveyard, but was growing fast...

A chance encounter with Bill Travers and Virginia McKenna led to a new life for Christian. He came to live in a huge enclosure and to sleep in a caravan at their Surrey home. Then in 1971 he was flown to Kenya, his ancestral home, and returned to the wild by lion-man George Adamson. Nine months later in 1972, John and Ace returned to Kora in Kenya. This clip is of their reunion at that time.

It was an emotional reunion: "He ran towards us, threw himself onto us, knocked us over and hugged us, with his paws on our shoulders."

John Rendall

Christian's story. Directed by Bill Travers, commentary by Virgina McKenna, founders of the Born Free Foundation.

See http://www.bornfree.org.uk for more about this story.

Christian the Lion is distributed by Beckmann Visual Publishing

• Category

  Pets & Animals

[tombro911]

"John? John is that you?! You son of bitch give me a hug!" Pretty sure that was the lion's reaction.

[hullinvation]

dammit dust in my eyes again ....

[5jerry1]

What does that say; the animals in Africa left them alone, but the people killed them...just nasty.

[Ferminator08]

: )

[2RobVanDam776]

This is clearly something that needs to be passed down from generation to generation. Very touching.

[Claire Koppenjan]

And there is the dust in my eyes again.

[triweeklyllama]

It's tough to make me cry, i'm like a rock through movies and things like that, but this video gets me every single time. It's the most beautiful thing i've ever seen and i just keep coming back here whenever i'm having a shit day. It restores my faith in the world.

[Wolvengine]

01:18 nutkick, anyway I love this video, Watched it 7 times already lol :D

[ashieboy1995]

mann sucks i can't hug my cat like that.

whenever i try he just thinks im crazy and runs around to my bed and rolls around

[Amin Armani]

I really hope they made a sequel like this to Life of Pi.

[ichigo999ification]

ermmmmm,,,nice~

old movie,,but juz a short n half of the real movie,,

[deniz kara]

damn ninjas are cutting onions next to me.