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List Price: $19.99 | | Label: Walt Disney Video
Salesrank: 8937
Released: June 1, 2004 |
| Our Price: $11.22 |
| Used Price: $9.93 |
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MPAA Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
Walt Disney Pictures and Amblin Entertainment team up to deliver a thrilling story, action-packed adventure, and breathtaking scenery! Thrown together under incredible circumstances, two strangers must discover courage and strength when they begin a journey across the treacherous African desert! Equipped with only their wits and the expertise of a native bushman who befriends them, they are determined to triumph over impossible odds and reach their destination. But along the way, the trio face a primitive desert wilderness teeming with deadly obstacles, including wild animals, ruthless poachers, and severe weather conditions!
Description of A Far Off Place:
In this 1993 Disney adventure, Reese Witherspoon and Ethan Embry are two young survivors of an African massacre. She is the daughter of a game warden; he is a sulky teen visiting his dad. When poachers do in the adults, the kids hotfoot it across the Kalahari Desert, aided by Witherspoon's young bushman pal (Sarel Bok). They have to cross about 1,000 miles of forbidding territory, all the while chased by nogoodnik Jack Thompson. The kids face down danger, have a few excessively cute escapades, and learn about their capacity for survival--and goodness. The highlights of the film are the lush cinematography and exotic locales of Zimbabwe and Namibia. Though this is a Disney production, it is too violent and intense for young children. It is based on the books A Story Like the Wind and A Far Off Place, by Laurens Van der Post. --Rochelle O'Gorman
A Far Off Place Reviews:
bleh 
2009-07-16 - This movie was so predictable it made me sick.They turned a powerful captivating book into generic average american teenager trash. Though i wasnt particulaly fond of the 2 main charactors in the book they had depth, and they werent so predictable. And what may i ask happend to the plot? instead of communists being the villians it was verry capitalist greedy moneymen.kinda ironic... and where is the african culture? the great singing tree of the makoba? the magic? Also its play at feminism was amusing. How is the strong masculine heroine weakening throughout the movie as she falls in love feminist? Read the books instead.
Great movie 
2009-01-19 - All three of my kids age 5,9,13 love this movie. We've watched rentals and tv runs for years and finally decided to purchase it. A great early Reese Witherspoon movie that shows how determination, humor and friends can help you do the near impossible. There is some violence but tastefully done.
One of my all time favorites!!!
2008-10-31 - I love this movie! I first saw it when I was a freshman in High School, and I now use it to teach a geography lesson on the Kalahari for my eighth graders. They love it, too. One of my favorite comments from them was "I can't believe we are all hooked on a Disney Movie!" This came from a boy no less!
Vast Mis-Representation of Laurens van der Post 
2008-05-20 - The novels of Laurens van der Post were based in the deeper reality of the African bush of the times of his writings. From the very beginning this film is untrue of his novels. Lonnie from the books, was a young boy-man who was a hunter of the first order, but based in the honor of code of the bush and its ways. Lonnie was never in the bush without his gun. In the movie the character does not have a rifle. Without Lonnie's own bush prowess, they, including the bushman would not have survived the ordeal of the African political factions and conditions of the forced initiations into manhood that he was faced with. Lonnie was a classical hero in every sense of the word and was never a twittering kid type as portrayed in the move. In van der Post's books Lonnie was forced to kill men to survive. Childen of a young age will like this film... its fairy tale, not reality. Those who respect the profound depth of van der Post's writing will be betrayed by this film.
...a charming story for all ages!
2008-04-21 - Reese Witherspoon rocked in this movies as a young teen in Africa standing up for her family's values for the preservation of the magestic elephant. All in the name of greed the poachers killing these magnificent animals just for their ivory tusks. This movie made me laugh,get angry and cry.
