Leofwine_draca A BEAR NAMED WINNIE is a cheap and sentimental Canadian TV movie about the true-life origins behind A.A. Milne's WINNIE THE POOH. It turns out that the original Winnie - aka Winnipeg - was originally a Canadian black bear, saved by a Canadian soldier and eventually transported to London Zoo during WW1, which is where Milne saw her. This low budget production is interesting for the cast alone, although it's very cheaply staged and unconvincing at times. Michael Fassbender puts in a good effort early in his career and Gil Bellows, Aaron Ashmore, Stephen Fry and David Suchet all offer their contributions.

win-ray A heart warming family story. We are a family of animal lovers and find this film very touching and worthy of studying the lives and habitats of the Canadian black bear. Very gentle and lovely ; the film is well produced and the casting is excellent. We bought a copy of this wonderful film in DVD form and guess it will be viewed by all our family members and many friends over the years to come. It certainly would make a very nice gift for birthdays and/or Christmas.The countryside is green and cool and very relaxing to look at and the locations well sought out. Congratulations to all involved in the making.

mejoza My children were very much entertained by this movie. Historical and semi-factual movies are not really their thing at ALL. It was nice to get them to discuss WWI, bears, relationships, zoo history.. you name it. The bear was really charming. I've never been a huge Pooh fan, but I am a bear fan. I love bear movies. This made me set aside a little love in my heart for Winnie the Pooh. It did bring some tears to my eyes when the bear is in the hospital visiting...I think it's better than average as kids' animal movies go. I don't think my husband would want to watch it again, however. I personally think this movie is rated a little high on this site. Perhaps it doesn't have enough votes yet to get a good measurement. It's a good movie, but by no means is it high cinema. It's a made for TV movie, for sure.

rps-2 I've already nitpicked about a few minor errors. But on the whole this is a pretty accurate, well produced and heart tugging movie that explores a little known tidbit of Canadian history. CBC hopes it will become an annual Christmas favourite. Interesting they cast David Suchet and Christopher Fry rather than Canadian actors. Do they perhaps want star names to help foreign sales? Okay, the ending is a little drippy. But again, this isn't a documentary but a fuzzy feel good animal movie and in that genre, it works well. Again hats off to CBC for fulfilling its mandate to produce original Canadian drama. (FYI-I meant to vote 8 but accidentally hit 9. It's very good but not that good.)