TANZING

by Victoria Alexander

Sensational! It is completely authentic and a triumph!

My son, Vladimir Lacas, always says: “Victoria’s reviews are all about herself.” Yes, so here goes:

In 2005, my husband and I took a British tour called The Other Side of Everest. It was a trek from Kathmandu to Everest Base Camp. Here is a photo of us at Everest Base Camp in front of the mountain. I have a huge section of my library for my vast Everest collection. I have watched all the movies and documentaries.

The most famous book on Everest is Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mt. Everest Disaster by Jon Krakauer (1997). During the May 1996 blizzard, Krakauer details the outrageous behavior of the climbers. Into Thin Air was made into a film, EVEREST (2015), starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Josh Brolin.

A documentary on the 1996 Everest attempt, The Dark Side of Everest, is a fascinating account that includes climber Beck Weathers, who describes his experience. He was left for dead and survived the “Death Zone.”

This documentary questions whether climbers should stop and help others who need help, or continue their ascent or descent of the mountain.

I recommend Michael Kodas’s book, High Crimes: The Fate of Everest in an Age of Greed, about his 2004 expedition to Mount Everest. It is a horrendous account of the “dark underside of Everest.”

Let’s hope conditions on the mountain have changed. Per High Crimes, Sherpas would help if problems occurred only if additional cash was given. Kodas found oxygen tanks were stolen or barely filled. Equipment and tents were ransacked.

Before we went to see TENZING, my husband told me he met Sir Edmund Hillary! John was at Ubon Royal Thai Air Force Base when Hillary visited on January 25, 1967. During his visit, the legendary Everest mountaineer spent time at the base, which served as a major strategic hub during the Vietnam War. A key highlight of his stop was visiting No. 79 Squadron of the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF). I asked John if he had a photo of the meeting, but he said no photos were taken.

Photos of Sir Edmund Hillary’s visit to Ubon are exceptionally rare. While the Australian War Memorial preserves the history of the RAAF at Ubon, images of Hillary’s visit are restricted to military history archives.

Before Neil Armstrong stepped on the moon, the first man to summit Everest was the achievement the world was waiting for.

It should be noted that Hillary declined to have Tenzing take a photo of him on the summit.

TENZING, directed by Jennifer Peedom, stars Tom Hiddleston as Hillary and Genden Phuntsok as Tenzing Norgay. The British wanted to succeed, after several failed attempts, in being the first to summit Everest. In 1952, John Hunt (Willem Dafoe) put together the mountaineering team to attempt the summit. If they failed, other countries had reserved the rights to make the attempt in the following years. The pressure was on.

I did research on the real Hunt expedition. The team totaled over 400 people, including 362 porters, 20 Sherpa guides, and 10,000 lbs. of baggage.

Tenzing, in his 1955 autobiography, Man of Everest, wrote that Hillary took the first step onto the summit and he followed.

TENZING weaves together the story of Tenzing as a young boy (Samdrup Dorje), watching the men in his village preparing to assist the foreigners, led by the famous George Mallory, to scale their revered mountain, Chomolungma. We move through Tenzing’s life, his marriage, his children, until the grown man (Genden Phuntsok) finally achieves the position of head Sherpa. This is an exceptional position, and he is given the responsibility of picking his team of Sherpas. The other Sherpas feel the mountain is sacred and should not be climbed.

Tenzing chooses one Sherpa, Pasang (Tenzin Jigmey), who openly dislikes him; regardless, he is one of the best.

As Hunt’s team readies themselves at base camp, Hillary sees the strength and determination of Tenzing and asks him if he wants to team up. Every mountaineer chooses a Sherpa. Even though Hillary has proven his skill on the mountain, Hunt selects another team to make the attempt. The other team members will support them.

When the chosen team fails to make the summit, Hunt reluctantly agrees to let Hillary and Tenzing try. The photography is sensational. How did the production do this? You feel that the mountaineers are actually climbing Everest. Hiddleston is terrific as the enigmatic Hillary, and Phuntsok is a charismatic find.

TENZING is a sensational film and, after a limited theatrical release, will be streamed on Apple TV. It is not to be missed.

What is Everest like today? Five people died on Mount Everest during the spring 2026 climbing season. The worst climbing season on Mount Everest was 2022, which recorded 18 fatalities.

The biggest problem facing climbers today is the number of people waiting to make the summit. Climbers on Mount Everest must turn back and start their descent by 2:00 PM at the latest, even if they have not reached the top, but slow and inexperienced climbers make the 2:00 PM deadline impossible.

Strong climbers stuck at the end of the line can never make the summit.

Shockingly, and garnering enormous media attention, was the 2023 incident involving Qunying, a 50-year-old climber from China who was found unconscious and left for dead in the “death zone” on May 18, 2023, after running out of oxygen and getting separated from her guide. Fan Jiangtao and Xie Ruxiang, two fellow Chinese climbers, abandoned their own lifelong dreams of reaching the Everest summit to save her.

They enlisted Sherpa guides, including Lakpa Gelu and Pem Chhiri, promising a $10,000 rescue reward to carry the unconscious climber down to Camp 4 over an arduous 11-hour rescue mission. After surviving, Liu Qunying reportedly offered to pay only $4,000 of the promised $10,000 rescue fee, stating she felt the amount was too high. Her reaction sparked a massive social media firestorm and widespread public outrage.