It is one of the well documented stories ever written on the subject by the author and the hunter Jim Corbett who went after the man eating leopard of Rudraprayag in the year 1925-26. He was accompanied by the Commissioner of Kumaon, Sir William Ibbotson. Both men worked so hard, day and night following this animal, which according to the documents, killed 125 people. Corbett was a 50 year old bachelor, very much in control, a tall (just over 6 feet)seasoned hunter and sporting his trademark mustache during this period, while Ibbotson was short (about 5'6"), clean-shaven and married to Jean.
In the film, the BBC twisted the story so far from reality and painted Corbett as a young arrogant foulmouthed punk, assaulting Ibbotson and developing a romantic interest with Jean Ibbotson. In reality, Corbett spent his nights chasing the leopard and never had any affair with Jean. In the film he is in bed with Jean Ibbotson, neglecting the leopard hunt. It also shows the pundit (played by veteran actor Roshan Seth) was killed by the leopard. Here the BBC made a plastic dummy of the Pundit, and it sure looked like a cheap plastic dummy painted with red stripes. In reality the Pundit was never killed by the leopard. Also in the film Corbett was portrayed as very edgy, bad tempered, foulmouthed and points his rifle to nearly everyone. It was not at all like that in reality. The film is riddled with horrible mistakes after mistakes. One viewer said that instead of tying up a goat as a bait to attract the leopard, they should have tied up the writer, director and producer to save the story.
In my opinion, it is the most awful 45 minute film ever produced by BBC and they had the guts to label it as a true story while their film is nothing but a fictitious account of incidents that never took place.
It is evident that this film was made with a very low budget with inexperienced producer, director and writer - none of them appears to have read the original account, the book titled The Man eating Leopard of Rudraprayag by Jim Corbett.
