Abstract: The English novel Life of Pi exhibits an intertextual borrowing from western religious and literary canons, in terms of its motif, plots and structure. The novel has also inherited from these sources a sense of spiritual uncertainty and an implicit skepticism of religious faith in God or any gods, a skepticism that renders the two storylines—the coexistence of a man and a tiger, and the character’s survival through the practice of cannibalism—highly conflicting and hard to reconcile. As he himself is strongly influenced by traditional Chinese Taoism and Buddhism, Ang Lee has incorporated in his interpretation of the novel and the production of the film a Chinese religious sensitivity to the mutability or nothingness (Xu Kong) of all things in the world. The subtle infusion of the Chinese spirit of“Xu Kong”helps to guide the protagonist through his religious crisis to a comprehension of the higher and greater truth, and hence to his own spiritual redemption. On the textual level, the protagonist’s epiphany also brings together and reconciles, in a subtle way, the two radically conflicting stories in the original text. Hence, the movie achieves unity and organic wholeness through this Chinese perspective.

Key words:  Life of Pi, Ang Lee, Chinese religious spirit, Taoism, Buddhism