This article is part of Portrait Mode , a Slate pop-up series about biopics.

Martin Scorsese’s 1997 film Kundun is famous mostly for being unknown, or at least unseen. Kundun is the ne plus ultra of footnotes in the career of one of the most esteemed filmmakers in history, who chose it as his follow-up to 1995’s big-budget gangster epic Casino . Universal was originally set to produce the film, which is about the early life of the Dalai Lama up until his 1959 exile from Tibet, but balked when it became clear its subject matter and politics would offend the Chinese government. Disney then picked it up, but ultimately opted to bury its release out of similar concerns. Kundun premiered on Christmas Day in 1997 on only two(!) screens in the United States, and ultimately grosse

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