SOURCE: Turan, Kenneth. “Buddha: Terminal Bliss.” Los Angeles Times (25 May 1994): F1.

In the following review, Turan offers a negative assessment of Little Buddha, complaining that the film lacks drama and convincing dialogue.

When the editor of Tricycle: The Buddhist Review, one of the few journalists allowed on the set of Little Buddha, the new Bernardo Bertolucci film, wrote about her experience, one question continued to trouble her. What was the word Little doing in the title?

None of the filmmakers, it turned out, could give her a satisfactory answer, but now that the picture itself is here, the reason seems obvious. Despite its illustrious pedigree, Little Buddha turns out to have the sensibility of a children's film, the most elaborate and expensive “Afterschool Special” ever to make it to the big screen.

Being a children's film, of course, is not necessarily a negative thing, and aspects of Little...