Mowgli is the main protagonist of the 1998 live-action direct-to-video film The Jungle Book: Mowgli's Story.
He is based on the character of the same name from the original stories by Rudyard Kipling.
Role in the film[]
Mowgli's village is attacked by the vicious tiger Shere Khan and he gets lost in the ruckus and runs into the jungle. There, Mowgli met Baloo the wise bear, Bagheera the black panther, and the rest of his animal friends and they have many adventures. Towards the end, Mowgli sees humans, but decides to stay away from them and live with Baloo, Bagheera, and the rest of his friends in the jungle; Kaa is noticeably absent from this version of the film.
Mowgli narrates the story of how he has an adventure not just about him changing his life forever and how he adapted his life in the jungle, as well as narrating the animals' plot. As Mowgli's village is under attack by Shere Khan, the tiger spots Mowgli and prepares to eat him. As Mowgli stares at the tiger, a group of hunters arrive and chase after Shere Khan attacking the village just as he plans to find his parents, to which he finds out that tracking down his parents was a bad idea and upon finding a cave, inside was a pack of wolves whom they call him a man-cub. With Mowgli accepted into the family under Raksha's request to her husband Akela, Tabaqui interrupts this moment just as Akela and Raksha confront the hyena for being an unwelcome guest. The next day, Mowgli adapts his life under care by Akela and Raksha while he encounters a few wolf pups who bully him thinking he wants to be a wolf just like them just as Akela comments on his daughter's comment to the pups about Mowgli finding his way. Mowgli then encounters a pair of baboons harassing an injured wolf named "Biranyi" to which Mowgli stops the baboons from hurting him much to Raksha's rage on harassing the wolf. Mowgli manages to remove a stick that was stuck on Biranyi's paw, to which he thanks him.
Later, Mowgli grabs a fruit to which he unawarely notices that the fruit he grabbed belongs to Hathi just as Raksha arrives and interrupts the conversation, explaining that Mowgli should know not to eat without asking Raksha first, warning him that the fruit is poisonous. From that day, Hathi takes Mowgli to explore the jungle around him, which changed his life every day throughout his adventures. As his life changed, Chil instructs Mowgli how to fly like a bird to which the plan was unsuccessful, causing Mowgli to get himself cleaned at a waterfall with two parrots watching over him. After cleaning himself, Mowgli encounters Baloo who is attempting to reach a beehive to get honey for himself to which Baloo warns Mowgli to be careful on getting honey for him because of the bees swarming the honey. Mowgli, uncontrollably attacked by bees, drops the beehive down to Baloo much to his advice while he later talks with Bagheera about how life came to Earth. Throughout his life in the jungle, Mowgli reflects himself to remember his adopted family just as he attends a meeting being started by Akela. During the meeting, Akela and Raksha's daughter, Li'l Raksha, has become old enough to hunt with the other wolves. During the meeting, Shere Khan arrives and explains about how dangerous hunting with human hunters is just as Baloo and Bagheera intervene. After Shere Khan and Tabaqui leave, Akela offers Mowgli to join the wolf pack and stand up against the tiger to which Mowgli accepts. Akela then officially allows him and Li'l Raksha to join the hunt.
In a plan to help Mowgli fight against the tiger Shere Khan, Bagheera instructs him by trying to fool Chil by doing a vulture call to which Bagheera instead teaches Mowgli how to hunt like a predator. That night, after a tough training with Bagheera, Mowgli quietly sleeps in a cave until Shere Khan disturbs his rest. The next day as time passed, Baloo helped Mowgli work harder than Bagheera to which during the conversation between him and Baloo, Bagheera interrupts it, just as Baloo and Bagheera discuss about teaching the Mowgli the instincts of hunting and eating to which Baloo tells the panther about the man-cub doing Bagheera's task by fooling Chil. Later after Mowgli was unable to look for grubs like what a Baloo was doing to help Mowgli gain energy on consuming grubs, he then decides to catch fish on a lake. Soon as Mowgli was unable to catch one like Baloo, he approaches the latter which he tells him to keep practicing to catch a fish like him. Soon as Bagheera approaches Mowgli, she discusses with him that a good hunter never lets his guard down, because someone could be hunting him (referring to Shere Khan stalking Mowgli) which Mowgli replies to Bagheera that it wasn't him to shot him; Baloo then tells Mowgli that Shere Khan never plays fair while Bagheera tells Mowgli to look into her eyes, telling him to know what it's like to be caught in a big cat's gaze. Mowgli looks hard into Bagheera's eyes, making an offer with Bagheera that if he practices with her, Mowgli would be immune to Shere Khan's hypnotism. Mowgli then narrates that his lesson with Bagheera was a good one, but one which he hoped that he would never have to use.
The next day, Mowgli meets the wolf pack who are on a hunt for deer while Akela is commanding his pack to split into three groups. During a discussion, Akela tells Mowgli that he, Li'l Raksha, and two other hunters will come up from the right side with assistance from some brother wolves straight up a hill to cut off their escape while Akela and Raksha will hide behind the left side of the ridge while just as Akela gives out the signal, alerting the brother wolves to catch them before they escape only for Mowgli to not catch one single deer, much to Akela's disappointment, as the wolves are very upset for not helping the wolves catch at least one deer. As the brother wolves leave in disappointment, Akela then discusses with Mowgli that he was supposed to wait, much to Mowgli trying to explain to him that he is different in his family, just as Mowgli leaves in frustration feeling upset, much to Akela and Raksha's worry of Mowgli leaving the pack. Mowgli then narrates of himself that it was his wolf father's idea to make him a hunter, in which his mistake was Akela's mistake.
That night, Mowgli approaches Baloo who tells him that everyone makes mistakes, even Baloo himself, while Bagheera replies that the Seeonee pack might forgive him and Mowgli's wolf parents must have been worried about this, just as Bagheera plans to take Mowgli back to his wolf family, which Mowgli refuses to go back, telling the panther to leave him alone. Bagheera then denies, telling him that running away is not the answer. She then recaps that when she was a cub, Bagheera got mad at her parents and escaped from them before she was caught by a group of poachers trying to sell her for her fur, telling Mowgli that she was chained up in a cage and felt sad that she would never see her family again and as the hunters were planning to move Bagheera to a bigger cage, Bagheera managed to escape from the hunters, telling Mowgli that she felt lucky. She then gives out a moral to Mowgli, telling him that if he is mad or upset, the worst thing he can do is to run away from his trouble. Baloo then replies to Mowgli that if he runs out of honey, he gets his own honey without getting upset, just as he tells Mowgli to get some rest for the next day.
The next day, Baloo approaches Mowgli telling him to catch some fish for breakfast, which Mowgli replies to him that by the time he catches one, it will be lunch time, much to Baloo telling Mowgli that it's a better day only for their conversation to be interrupted by a trio of chimps planning to trick Mowgli into trouble, much to Baloo telling Mowgli to stay away from the chimps to avoid getting tempted into doing mischief, just as the chimps keep harassing the two, which Baloo attempts to ward them away, much to Mowgli joining the chimps instead of staying with Baloo, fearing that Bagheera would not like this just as Mowgli plays with the mischievous chimps and tries to follow them only to pass by Chil and then the edge leading to the wolf pack's territory. Much to Chil's warning about Mowgli getting into trouble, he decides to join the chimps into another area called "Monkey Town" to join the other monkeys in their territory. As Mowgli enters a hut as directed by the monkeys which was dubbed a "treasure room", it turns out that the area was used as a trap, locking up Mowgli inside. Seeing an open window nearby, Mowgli attempts to escape only to be fooled by a baboon who closes the window. Mowgli then narrates that when he sat there all alone, he narrates that Baloo would be looking for him all across the jungle in a plan to find him and rescue him. As Mowgli stayed inside, he curiously interacts with the objects inside, including a finding a set of matches which he uses to light a fire to escape the trap which Mowgli realizes that he found matches an interesting object to use which reminds the animals of the Red Flower. Seeing the objects inside the hut, he curiously interacts with certain objects, including a book with an illustration of a tiger in it, reminding Mowgli of Shere Khan.
Meanwhile, Bagheera suddenly arrives at Monkey Town trying to make sure Mowgli is safe, warning Mowgli that he won't be safe if he doesn't escape before Shere Khan arrives. She then plans a distraction plan to help rescue Mowgli. In a plan to rescue Mowgli, Bagheera tells the baboons that she found a map leading to the a lost land full of large bananas which Bagheera manages to distract the baboons and the other monkeys in a plan to rescue Mowgli while Baloo smashes through the hut's front door where Mowgli was locked at, rescuing him which Mowgli and Baloo manage to escape Monkey Town.
The next day, Hathi wakes up Baloo and Bagheera who have rescued Mowgli from Monkey Town which Hathi warns Mowgli about the bad news about his wolf mother Raksha which Mowgli rides on Hathi to arrive at the spot where Raksha was last seen which Baloo and Bagheera follow along where they arrive at Mowgli's home where Mowgli knew the horrible reason about why Hathi took him. As Mowgli finds out of Raksha's death, he mourns her and claims that it was all his fault about this, just as Mowgli risks himself to leave the jungle and never come back, after claiming that it was his fault. As Mowgli runs far away from his home, he grew exhausted until he found a zebu leading to the Man Village, where all kinds of memories were returning to him, particularly things what humans do as well as feeling comfortable in this area. Mowgli then hears Li'l Raksha calling for help and as Mowgli finds her, he finds her paw caught on an animal trap. Soon as Mowgli rescues Li'l Raksha from the trap, he tells her that he must leave to avoid causing more trouble which Li'l Raksha denies, warning him that Shere Khan will stalk him wherever he goes, trying to explain that he must stay in the jungle and get ready to stand up against the tiger. Mowgli then understands what Li'l Raksha is saying to him, after realizing that running away is not the answer and what is more important to him is facing Shere Khan and planning to defeat him, fighting him like a man just as Mowgli gains courage to stand up against the tiger.
That night, Mowgli approaches Shere Khan and Tabaqui, taking on the tiger and taunting him in the jungle in a plan to catch him which he plans to stand up against the tiger and seeing that Shere Khan is getting angry planning to lure him into a trap which is the river, which Baloo, Bagheera, Li'l Raksha and Hathi assist Mowgli confronting the tiger which Shere Khan replies that he will rule over the jungle and win over Mowgli. He then grabs a set of matches he obtained from Monkey Town and ignited a match to form a fire known as the Red Flower, igniting a stick to burn a patch of roots to surround the tiger. When Shere Khan asks Tabaqui to help him but is unable to, due to the fire blocking the path, Tabaqui taunts Mowgli, which he snarls at Tabaqui, scaring the hyena away. After Tabaqui retreats, Mowgli confronts Shere Khan in combat, telling him to step down from being a powerful tyrant, banishing the tiger from the jungle which Shere Khan promises to leave and never return to the jungle after Mowgli burns a drawing of a tiger which he found at the hut in Monkey Town, just as Shere Khan runs away from the jungle in terror.
With Shere Khan defeated, Li'l Raksha happily praises Mowgli for defeating the tiger followed by three wolves who apologize to Mowgli for bullying him in the first place, telling the man-cub to be the leader of the wolf pack which he tells the three that Li'l Raksha will do her best to lead the pack being the new leader of the Seeonee pack. In the aftermath, Mowgli narrates of how his life changed when he felt like a man. The next day, Mowgli shows an animal encyclopedia to Baloo and Bagheera which gives out information of the animals he finds like monkeys, panthers, or elephants just as Baloo and Bagheera bid a farewell to Mowgli who discovers new adventures every time he opens the book.
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