The Quest Movie
Storyline
TAGLINES
Go the distance
A lost city, A man of destiny, A test of honor...
Chris embarks on an odyssey of self-discovery that spans the globe. Kidnapped and enslaved by gun smugglers, sold by pirates and thrust into the murky underworld of gambling and kickboxing, Chris' journey takes him to forbidding Muay Thai Island where deadly martial arts are taught, the colonial splendor of British East Asia, the dank back alleys of Bangkok, desolate deserts once trod by the warriors of Genghis Khan and finally, the ancient Lost City. There he must face the ultimate test of his manhood in the fabled Ghang-gheng, the ancient winner-take-all competition in which the deadliest fighters from around the world employ the most spectacular feats of martial arts skills ever displayed in order to win the prized Golden Dragon. But fighting prowess alone will not be enough for Chris to triumph over such daunting foes. He must reach deep inside and access all of the determination, strength of character and sense of selfless honor within in order to triumph over this final obstacle on his long trek home.
| Jean-Claude Van Damme | Christopher Dubois |
| Roger Moore | Lord Edgar Dobbs |
| James Remar | Maxie Devine |
| Janet Gunn | Carrie Newton |
| Jack McGee | Harry Smythe |
| Aki Aleong | Khao |
| Abdel Qissi | Khan |
| Louis Mandylor | Riggi |
| Chang Ching Peng Chaplin | Master Tchi |
| Ryan Cutrona | Officer O'Keefe |
| Shane Meier | Red |
| Matt Lyon | Billy |
| Jen Sung Outerbridge | Phang |
| Peter Wong | Chinese Fighter |
| Kitao Koji | Sumo Wrestler |
| Jean-Claude Van Damme |
4.60 out of 10 (4981 votes)
Visitor Reviews
Van Damme the ULTIMATE 80's / B-movie actor
posted on 28 Jul 2009Brilliant! Almost an identical plot as a few other of Van Dammages films - Bloodsport and Kickboxer. But as my pappy always says, if you can't beat it, stick with it! This movie was made in the mid 90's which proves its ability to transcend the decades as it is still as great to watch today as it was when it first came out. It also starts other greats as Roger-some-Moore, and James Remar. Remar really adds he quality to this film that other supporting actors added to Bloodsport. He plays a mug boxer, who finds Van Dammes style of using his legs to fight superb, thus becomes his biggest fan. No, on a more serious note this film is suberbly made. It has an edge of cheese (which is why we all watch Van Damme) which was purposely added, the evil Mongol bad guy, and James Remar. I would recommend this film not only to martial arts fans but movie critics as well.
* OUT OF FIVE
posted on 03 Nov 2008Jean-Claude Van Damme stars as Chris a thief who fights in an outlawed tournament for the prize of a gold dragon, in this inert head basher which is so bad it left Van Damme fans disappointed. Terrible actionscenes and horrible pace make this one utterly unwatchable.
great, action packed, tight movie.
posted on 07 Oct 2008This movie is an awesome film that is really under rated. I am very into martial arts movies and I dont care how corny or stupid and I liked how this one was similiar to Van Dammes greatest "Bloodsport", I always like the "secret tournament, nobody knows about, in a hidden location" type movies, they never get old no matter how many times the plot is done over. If your one of those "oh it seems so scripted and not enough realism" type of watchers then dont get it, but if you block all that out and just focus on what the movie is really about then this is an awesome A+ movie. Great fight scenes and a good combination of different martial art styles.
one of the stupidest ever
posted on 13 Sep 2008Aren't these people sick of this sh*t yet?? Cause I am..... it's a movie you definetely should skip. You've seen this before, so many times... including in Blood Sport or in other Van Damme movies... This was done just for Van Damme to flex his pecs a little bit and show us his karate skills, cause the rest is absolutely unimportant.And an advice: Mr Van Damme, please quit directing movies, it's a total fiasco... you have no idea how to do that. And please for the sake of all man kind go back to Holland and leave us alone.Vote: 0 out of 10.(unfortunately that's impossible, so it's 1 out of 10)
A cool van Damme!
posted on 24 Jul 2008This is one van Damme you haven't seen over and over again. This one delivers a story as well as being a cool action movie. The story begins with an old man (van Damme) who looks back, this is not the best thing in the movie (perhaps the worst). But later when the "real" film starts it's non-stop action and good filming. This is one of the best van Damme movies I've seen and could be compared to "Sudden Death" and "Universal Soldier".
Excellent!
posted on 12 Jul 2008I am a Jean-Claude Van Damme Fan and have to say this is a 'Damme' good film. Doesn't the film remind you of 'Bloodsport'? Well this has a good story about Chris who wants to get the golden dragon and ends up in a tournament for the dragon. The fight scenes aren't that violent as most people would want to see. But it is an Epic, with a dramatic story. Roger Moore even acts in it gives a 'Bond' type entrance to his name. Overall this is a great film which shall not be missed by all fans. Van Damme is the man!
Back to Basics for Van Damme
posted on 13 May 2008One the the things I liked most about 'Bloodsport' was the ability to show off loads of different martial arts and fighting techniques, so when I heard that 'The Quest' was like a sort of Bloodsport for the 90's, I was naturally quite intrigued. I liked 'Bloodsport' a lot so being a fan of that I felt naturally drawn to 'The Quest'. The thing is, this film is nothing like 'Bloodsport' and, frankly, a load of garbage. Not even James Bond can save this film from complete disaster. The fight scenes are lacking in quality, the techniques are never fully utilised, and the fights never seem to flow naturally, they have a very staged quality about them, something which was good about Bloodsport' because the fights seemed to flow quite well. Another problem I have with this film is the overall quality of it. The story is very boring and doesn't make a lot of sense and it very rarely caught my attention throughout it's entire duration. This film is almost single-handedly responsible for Van Damme being regulated to the DVD shelves, its a shame, however, that 'Maximum Risk' didn't make up for it but I guess that was the final nail in the coffin for the big studio executives, as was 'Universal Soldier II: The Return'.Why Van Damme couldn't just stick in front of the camera is what annoys me the most. This is when ego drove him insane and made him want to become a director, the thing is, Van Damme is not even the greatest actor in the world, nor is he a good writer, so why on earth should he even think about taking up the directing job? That's probably why this film is terrible. This film is not terrible in the same way that 'Cyborg' is terrible, it's just not very good in the slightest. Whenever I watch Van Damme films, I always think back to my childhood, I always bear in mind the idea of whether or not I would have liked this film when I was younger, but I didn't then and still don't know even after viewing it over and over again trying to find something good about it. Basically, Van Damme is a small-time criminal living in New York who gets into a lot of trouble, winds up in the hands of pirates and thieves, and eventually meets up with a noble English mercenary called Lord Edgar Dobbs (Roger Moore). Dobbs then sells Van Damme to a slave colony where he is trained to fight. Dobbs then buys Van Damme back off the slave owners and tries to get him involved in a Kumite-like, full contact martial arts event in a lost city in the Tibetan mountains featuring the best fighters from around the wold. Sensing that Van Damme will lose, Dobbs tries to steal the large golden dragon which is the emblem of the lost city but is thwarted and thrown into prison within the lost city. Van Damme then gets to the final where he faces a seemingly invincible Mongolian opponent, wins, gets the girl, gets a medal, and reflects on his life when we see him about 40 or so years later.I'm really not to keen on this film at all, half of it doesn't make sense. Sure, we might forgive Van Damme what with it being his directorial debut, but it's still not a good film, and this is where the line on the chart descends in Van Damme's career.
Sadly, the goofy melodrama and the exotic martial arts just don't mix…
posted on 18 Dec 2007In Van Damme's directorial debut, he stars as Chris Dubois, a New York City orphan who stows away aboard a ship on it's way to Asia to escape a life on the edge of society, only to be captured and sold quite literally into slavery. There's even a part where he is asking a shady character played by Roger Moore called Lord Edgar Dobbs ("Dobbs, Lord Dobbs…") to "buy him" so he can have a chance to go to a mysterious place called the Lost City to enter an ultra-secret fighting championship and win his freedom and maybe a little glory along the way.Sadly, the plot is one of the weakest I've seen in a Van Damme movie, which is not a good thing. The first hour comes across as almost an excuse just to get to the fight scenes at the end, which resemble some of his earliest fighting movie like Bloodsport and Kickboxer, but here are so brief and watered down that they are meaningless. It would be better if they just described them. But I'll get to that later.Clearly, Chris' motivation is to get his freedom, but there is also the matter of this fighting tournament, which is a little difficult to understand. The best fighters from all of a dozen or more different countries are there to find out who is the best in the world. It's sort of like the Olympics for fighting with all those nations represented, except it's super-secret so there is no publicity and no recognition for their achievements. One journalist is there, but she had to pull a serious amount of strings in order to get there. These must be fighting purists, the guys that do it for the spiritual reasons and not the money or fame.Anyway, this Lord Dobbs becomes interested when Chris explains to him that the prize for winning the tournament is "a big dragon made of solid gold," so Chris is able to enlist his help in getting to the tournament, provided he can win his freedom if he shares the prize with him. All of this is generally irrelevant, of course. The movie exists just for the fight scenes, but sadly, once they finally get started it quickly becomes one of the most disappointing parts of the whole movie.The tournament takes place somewhere called the "Lost City," which is described as "the top of the world." Maybe this is meant to evoke something like Lhasa, the capital city of Tibet, which calls itself "the roof of the world." There's no resemblance, but it's an interesting coincidence. Anyway, soon we learn that there is more to risk than getting the tar beaten out of you. One of the fight officials ominously warns Chris that, if he loses, he can never leave the Lost City.How's that again? Such stipulations are always a complete mystery to me. When I was in Tibet last summer, we took a trip to Namtso Lake a couple hours north of Lhasa, which claims to be the "highest lake in the world" at about 5200 meters (I'm pretty sure that there are dozens that are much, much higher, but no matter), the locals at the lake told us that the lake was sacred to them, so if you bathe in it, or even just wash your face or hands or feet, your punishment will be that they'll never let you leave. Uh-huh. Who would they really be punishing? Anyway, the actual tournament looks like a video game, a cartoonishly overblown ceremonial setup that reminds me of Mortal Kombat, which I understand is one of Van Damme's worst movies ever. I haven't seen it, but I can certainly imagine! Each country is represented by a goofy stereotype, often in wildly inappropriate attire. There is the German fighter who looks exactly like a Nazi, complete with calf-high standard issue military work boots, the Japanese sumo-wrestler, the squirrelly Chinese guy, the mountainous, frightening Mongolian (who doesn't look remotely Mongolian, but no matter), etc.What I especially love is that every fighter comes out, does some bizarre dance, and then the fight begins and ends within 10-15 seconds without fail. The Turkish fighter, who looks like one of the toughest fighters of all of them, gets shoved backwards by the sumo-wrestler and then I guess he just passes out. I've never seen anyone get knocked out from being pushed, but it happens in this movie. Anyway, things get strangely familiar again when Chris takes off the headband of a fallen friend, swearing revenge with an evil stare at the scary Mongolian. This is as goofy as it gets, but for some reason it's still fun to watch Van Damme in this kind of situation. Too bad the rest of the movie is so bad.What I mean by that, of course, is things like the conclusion of the movie, where Lord Dobbs and his hapless sidekick attempt to steal the golden horse, which has cleverly been left out in the middle of an open courtyard during the tournament, with so little security that no one notices when they try to steal it using a BLIMP. You see, they figure it's too heavy for anyone to carry off, which renders even the most conspicuous and noticeable vehicle perfectly acceptable. NICE.The end of the movie is abrupt and cheesy, complete with a ham-handed moral and a totally uncreative mention of the future of the cast. At least Lord Dobbs mentions that he's a pirate, but used to be a captain in the Royal Navy. Interesting because that's what most pirates were in real life before they turned to a life of crime. Sadly, there's not much else here. For some good Van Damage you're better off with the earlier kickboxing films…
Entertaining martial arts movie
posted on 28 Sep 2007Jean-Claude Van Damme's directorial debut is a very good martial arts film. This was his first pure martial arts movie in quite some time as he had started doing more American style action movies. This return to the Bloodsport style is welcome. Van Damme plays a poor clown named Chris Dubois while Roger Moore co-stars as the British thief Edgar Dobbs.Dubois is chased out of New York after he is thought to have murdered a boy. He finds himself on a ship and is imprisoned by pirates until Edgar Dobbs rescues him. The highlight of the movie though is the martial arts tournament in the lost city of Tibet. There is plenty of great fighting in this tournament. The entire movie is both great in an action/adventure type of way when they're locating the Lost City and Dubois is escaping at the beginning but it's also great for the martial arts.Highly recommended for action/martial arts fans.
Do not bother watching this film, go rent Bloodsport instead.
posted on 20 Aug 2007A contrived, disappointing movie, even for Van Damme. His attempt to direct and star in this film proves a failure. The addition of his law suit over the stealing of the story from Frank Dux (Bloodsport) makes it all the more pathetic. I could have written this story in an afternoon or just renamed his earlier work, Bloodsport, and called it The Quest. This film is a bad version of Van Damme's finest work, Bloodsport (made years earlier). The beginning looks promising but after the "look at how tough and scary Van Damme looks" scene it goes downhill. Roger Moore is a needless character (and might I add, 'actor'). The PG-13 rating does not help, since superb violence is most of what one goes to see in a Van Damme movie. The plot is see-through, even more so than most his films. Do not bother watching this film, go rent Bloodsport instead.
The Big Picture of 1951.Spangles, cigarette cards and Tizer.
posted on 05 Aug 2007A rattling good old-fashioned Boys Own Paper adventure redolent of Saturday Morning Pictures in the early 1950s,colourful,exotic,exciting. Lots of fighting,an almost Conradian plot,a pretty girl with some lovely dresses,a slightly tarnished Englishman as the good/baddie...... what more could any boy want? Mr van Damme has the odd attack of "arty-crafty"Why the clown on stilts? There is a nice nod to "Once upon a time in America",are they using the same set? But generally "The Quest" is good uncomplicated fun.Mr van Damme bounces around a lot,Mr Roger Moore comes perilously close to giving his best movie performance,certainly his most sympathetic one as "Lord" Dodds,the English privateer who rescues van Damme from one enslavement only to sell him into another. It reminds me of the times we used to stand around in the foyer of the Odeon,Guildford,swapping cigarette card,stocking up on "Spangles" and "Tizer" waiting for the usherette to let us in to the magical and mysterious darkened theatre to marvel at Roy Rogers,Frank Buck and "Don Winslow of the navy". "The Quest" is a throwback to those innocent times.If you either remember them or want to experience them vicariously,you would be well-advised to watch it.
Just a rerun of Bloodsport that will please Van Damme fans but not really do much for anyone else
posted on 07 Apr 2007While running from the mob after stealing from them, pickpocket and homeless Christopher Dubois hides on a ship in dock. When he wakes the next morning he finds himself in the 'employment' of the ship's crew. He remains their slave until the ship is raided and Dubois rescued by Lord Dobbs, Edgar Dobbs. Dobbs Edgar Dobbs then sells Dubois into slavery on an island where he learns to fight over several years. When the pair run back into one another, Dubois asks Dobbs Edgar Dobbs to buy his freedom and help him gain entry into the secret contest where the grand prize is a solid gold dragon. Getting entry on the back of Maxie Devine's invite, Dubois fights his way through the best in the world while Dobbs Edgar Dobbs casts his twinkling eyes over the golden dragon. Having just watched Bloodsport again a few weeks ago, I was taken aback by just how similar this and that film were – clearly Van Damme's desire to have a hit movie he decided to go back to basics for his first film as director. The film feels like it cost more than Bloodsport, although the period setting takes away a little bit from the rough edge that a martial arts movie should really have. The plot is a bit better and employs some humour (mostly from Dobbs) but this only means it is better than Bloodsport – not that it's a great film! All the aspects of Bloodsport are here – the fight, the fighter friend, the female journalist love interest, the different fighting styles etc. I think this damaged it a bit for me because I was very aware of how lazy it was just to do the same film all over again.The writing is mostly poor (the films is narrated in a bar at the start but ends being read from a book) and has few good lines and mostly just a load of halfbaked ideas but chances are you aren't watching for the plot! No, most of us came for the fighting and, in that regard the film is just about worth seeing.Aside from the lazy national stereotyping, the fighters are mostly good and even the ones given silly styles (oh look he's a snake/monkey/tiger) manage to impress. Van Damme as director focuses on showing us the difficult moves by using slow-mo occasionally but what he forgets to do is inject any of the fights with any real excitement, tension or passion – even the last fight seems rather by the numbers in terms of watching it; I observed it rather than got into it! Aside from this he does OK as a first time job but I'm not sure if many of this film's weaknesses didn't come from him as writer/director/star. As star, he goes through his usual stuff and does his moves well – he is a poor character (lazily using kids to get him to be a hero sort) but generally all his fans care about is that he fights well and here he does some good moves. Remar has little to do but I quite like him, but both McGee and Gunn just hang around the edges. Thank God then for Roger Moore who plays the whole thing with a twinkle in his eye and appears to be having fun while doing it. Hardly acting so much as just being himself, he evens introduces himself as 'Dobbs, Edgar Dobbs', which I thought was hilarious and, even if the material is weak, he seems to enjoy himself a lot more than I did watching this! The other fighters are OK but few really make an impact (if you know what I mean) and as big as Qissi is, Bolo he ain't!Overall if I had to pick one of them, I think I'd watch Bloodsport again as it is rougher round the edges and doesn't have the bigger budget pretensions that this film has. The fights lack passion and excitement but are quite fun to watch; just a shame that plotting, dialogue, structure, tone and acting are pretty much average at best. Van Damme photocopied his first American hit hoping that's all he's have to do to have another hit – his laziness caught him out with this one; not a really bad all told, but not much cop neither.
Please, tell me this is a parody...
posted on 05 Mar 2007Some of the aspects of this sorry film are unbelievably cheesy. If you can watch it without smiling, you're probably a teenager. "Thailand vs Africa", "Mongolia vs Scotland", all fighters representing their national garments - oh come on... The Spanish guy with black trousers, white shirt and flamenco gestures was so comical that I started suspecting that this film was a parody. The Scottish guy with a kilt getting kicked into his unprotected balls was also *very* creative, wasn't it? I wouldn't be surprised to see a Russian soldier with a military coat, a pointed cap with a red star and a bottle of vodka in his hands, or a Norwegian with a red beard and skis in this film. I'll refrain from commenting on the non-existent acting in this movie. It is possible to direct a good film with martial arts in it, but this is clearly not the case...
Another Bloodsport
posted on 13 Jan 2007This film has two curious points: one, its story has been written by Van Damme and he's the director too. Unbelievable! But that's all, folks. In fact, that's another poor and extremely boring kickboxer film with no plot and only one or two good moments (like the sequence when Van Damme escape from America). The plot line resembles another Van Damme film, "Bloodsport", maybe the best film that he had acted until now. It's a pity that the master of kickboxer, in this one, gets no kick at all. (1 star of 5 = Rating).
A fine example of "film d'martial arts"..
posted on 14 Dec 2006The Quest is certainly one of JCVD's best. It has a quite good epic story and style which generally you cannot see in a martial arts movie. Come on people, this is action and so evaluate it in its genre. Emancipate yourselves from "film d'art" complexes. Give its right, this is an exquisite "film d'martial arts"..
the worst movie I've ever seen
posted on 11 Nov 2006This is definitely the worst movie I've seen in my entire life. I don't like Van Damme at all, and I only watched this one because my friends had it on video. But it's simply stupid and devoid of any plot, acting skills and logic. Although I knew from the very beginning that it would to be a bad movie, I didn't expect it to be such a disaster. Even worse than Maximum Risk, and that one was already terribly bad.Do yourself a favor and don't waste your time on something as unspeakably horrible as The Quest.
Good direction debut for van Damage
posted on 30 Sep 2006Jean Claude van Damme both stars in and directs this movie. And the result is pretty good. The movie starts out rather bad, but it becomes better as the story proceeds. I'm a big lover of movies with fighting tournaments, and this one is no exception from that. One especially interesting feature with this movie is that the fighters represent their countries. The different nationalities are a bit overdone, but that's not a major setback for the movie. It was indeed surprising to see Roger Moore in a van Damme-movie. I'm a big fan of him because of his Bond movies and because he doesn't take himself or his roles that seriously. Therefore, he fits perfect in this well made action-flick.
Beautiful...just beautiful
posted on 30 Apr 2006I was very impressed with this movie. It had everything, beautiful scenery, good fighting, good actors(including Van Damme himself) and good plot. I was impressed with Van Damme's directorial debut. He made such a great and orignal story with a good message of self-discovery. People, don't believe all of the reviewers who say this movie sucked, that's just plain lying.Possible Spoiler warning: I admit, the tournament was very Bloodsport-esque in a way, but it still had a touch of originality to it. In Bloodsport, I only saw fighters who were mainly trained in Karate or Kickboxing, maybe a little bit of kung-fu. But, in the Quest, there were fighters of all types. There were fighters from all over the world, each trained different styles of martial arts. There were men trained in Karate, Kickboxing, Muay Thai, Sambo, Capoeira, Sumo, Wrestling, Savate, and maybe a little bit of bando. I really recommend this film to any martial arts fan or anyone just looking for a good movie to watch.
A good movie
posted on 25 Mar 2006This movie is similar to another van damme movie called Bloodsport. But overall there are great fight scenes a good story and a lot of different and unique martial arts used, The story is good and has a good cast. The Quest is a great movie that is worth renting if your a action movie fan,martial arts movie fan or a bloodsport fan. Th quest is a 10 out of 10.recommended: Bloodsport Kickboxer the circuit
Same plot, different setting
posted on 03 Aug 2009Anyone who's watched both Bloodsport and The Quest can hardly escape noticing the distinct similarities. Jean-Claude Van Damme's debut film as director didn't strain his creativity. This time the tournament, known as the Ghan-gheng, takes place in the lost city of Tibet. The prize? A golden dragon.The Quest falls short of reaching the standard set by Bloodsport. Where Bloodsport maintains the pretense of a plot, Van Damme seems to allow The Quest to quickly deteriorate into mindless fighting. He even fails to allow the crucial training scenes during the seemingly short tournament. The only recurring image that might have been dramatic was his flashbacks to childhood. Unfortunately, this too was left unresolved.Roger Moore on the upside gave the film a boost as Lord Edgar Dobbs. He salvages the film bringing some acting ability. This film is worth watching for the fight scenes, although Bloodsport would make a much better choice.