Product ReviewsQuest for Fire (DVD, 1981)

Great Prehistoric Adventure Fantasy on par w/1Million B.C. Great Visual Storytelling!

Great Movie, Director captures what could've been among early man and his real day to day struggles to survive.
Not knowing how fire is made and depending upon nature to provide a lightning strike on a tree to be gifted fire to keep them warm, cook their food and ward off wild predators.
Even gives you a rough idea of how they communicated with each other sometimes almost primate. Plus the rival tribes also vying for fire.(Neanderthal and Cannibals) Not to mention the wild Predators (Sabre Tooth Cats done very well.) and the Wolves are Terrifying. They just waited to get them out in the open to pounce. Survival of the fittest is very much shown here in this film.
I liked the Wooly Mammoths they portrayed (even had a baby among them) Done so well.
The advanced Tribe is done very well too. The scene where they make a campfire always gets me to see the dumbfounded look on the faces of the Cavemen. (I would say Cro-Magnon type.)
The French Director did a great job to bring this to the Big screen.Read full review...

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Thought it might be interesting

This movies has several sub species of man fighting over fire, women, and food. There was an attempt to make it funny, but the end result was the movie wasn’t very good.

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very appropriate for the movie content

My husband had seen this movie years ago and had never forgotten it.He had been searching for a copy to buy for years. I went on ebay and there it was, brand new on dvd. We watched it together and I felt it was well put together and very realistic for the time period.You are watching prehistoric man, they are very primative and there is no understandable dialog but it was put together well. It is not for children to watch , there are some x rated scenes in it.The story line is about how dependent these cave people have become since discovering fire from a lightning strike and it's benefits to the tribe. However they don't know how to start it themselves so it is guarded from other peoples who do end up fighting them and stealing it. They then must travel all over looking for a storm that strikes another tree.There are more battles with those who stole it to start with and then the men who set out to find it again rescue a girl from another unknown tribe and her village is more progressed than the others. She shows them how to make fire with twirling the sticks method.The original men head back to their cave many miles away with the precious lighted coal and she follows{luckily} as our main character tries to start a fire the way she taught him but gets no results. She takes over and starts a fire to the wonder of his people . Happy ending.Read full review...

Quest for Fire worth a look

The first time I've seen this movie was in 1982 on a very large (65 feet wide) theaterscreen. Well, that really impressed me, especially since this movie has some awesome scenery. The fact, that this is quite a different show with some well-made (for its time) special effects, caused me to think about it again. It also tells a very interesting story, so I wanted to see it again. I did not impress me all that much the second time around (especially on a small TV-Screen), but for someone who's never seen it, this movie should be very entertaining. It has something of everthing, Sci-Fi, Horror-, Action- and Love.Read full review...

excellent adventure film has aged well

It's hard to believe that Quest for Fire will soon be 30 years old but it's true. The film has held up well over the years. This is largely because the story is a classic quest - a form that has held up well since Homer - and because it was filmed in beautiful locations all over the world.

Strong performances by nearly every actor make the characters believable. There is no dialogue. The languages depicted in use are ancient. Spoken communication is sparse but the meanings are made plain by the context. There is no need for subtitles. The heroes are an amusing trio who doggedly work their way through a predicament that reminds us of the long ages in which our ancestors faced rough and raw nature with determination, fortitude and wits.

The weakest features in the film are a short scene in which invaders, primitive hominids depicted by the use of costume makeup, attack the protagonists' tribe and also certain moments when the "home clan" members are portrayed as just a bit short of being fully upright, modern humans. The costumes of the hominid invaders remind me of Planet of the Apes. This isn't surprising considering the age of the film. That scene hardly detracts from the film at all. As for the occasional shambling gate of the heroes; if I understand it rightly the people of 80,000 years ago were modern humans. If language was yet short of full development, and this is speculative, their posture was upright and they walked normally. I don't mean to say that the protagonists are portrayed as knuckle draggers. Just that I figure you could dress our ancestors of that time in modern clothes and never pick them out of a crowd, that's all. But this is nit picking.

The strong, classic plot with its humorous and dramatic intervals is flawlessly acted against the backdrop of spectacular settings. The film makers traveled the globe to find these settings and the actors endured no small discomfort putting certain scenes on film. All that make this entertaining film one that will last for some long while yet I think.Read full review...

The greatest documentary, filmed 80,000 years ago

The movie camera was invented in the early 20th century. Little did we know that 80,000 years ago, an earlier version was already in use .
This movie is a fantastic recreation of early human life on earth at the time when most of our ancestors were still living in caves & spoken words were just coming into use.
The way the characters are depicted is astonishing. The way their quest to find fire and bring it back to the tribe is amazing.
Relating to this epic is a way of re-living our past in a way that can be related to the present. We get up in the morning, go to work, and come back home with our modern day version of fire, which we call money. The money we earned is buying for us our food, shelter, cloths and all else.
Our cavemen family needed the fire for survival, warmth, food and a barrier for human eating animals.
Catch this movie while you can. It is an amazing experience, one that we must have had in order to bring us to where we are now.
I rate it an A+. The best documentary (if you can call it such) ever made.Read full review...

Quest for Fire (2003, DVD)

I first saw this movie on Showtime more than 20 years ago and was impressed at how well our prehistoric ancestors were portrayed without words...the language the humans spoke in the movie was grunts and hand gestures, yet it was a most engrossing film. Ron Perlman was a very young caveman, and did a good job of acting. I liked the fact that this was not an "ordinary" movie, but rather one that made me think about the impact the discovery of fire has had on our civilization...I had remembered it from all those years ago, and was happy to find it on dvd, so I purchased it, and am very glad that I did.Read full review...

Excellent how Cromagnon man used to be ..

An excellent movie of historical fiction. Rae Dawn Chong hasn't made a better movie. It is superb acting from all involved. Having virtually no dialog the acting of body language told the story well of more than one way to make fire ...Read full review...

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It's a one of a kind movie.

It's a one of a kind movie. A story in the time of our very distant ancestors. Desmond Morris was the consultant for the body language used - the actors did a great job with it. Excellent photography throughout the film.Read full review...

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A keeper by default (repeated watched over the years with the same effect)

One of the last non animated,"ahead of it`s time" Flix that is both entertaining and deeper than a mud puddle;(even though some would say that was the prism here lol). Somewhat historical to the point it does not matter to fact -more to ones preconception..... the cast ,director/producers screen/play-writers costume/makeup are all on the same page and committed to its purpose. REAL commitment/action/hard work and suffering to put forth the concept of those involved-an art long dead to the computer generated illusions of what can never be- nor are you allowed to visualize to your imagination- like you would a good book/story. A damning and dangerous loss to humanity and the double think that rules present.

With measurable satisfaction I can say that you (and your-older.. grand kids lol) will repeatedly watch and enjoy this almost extinct type of "Hollywood" long after Transformers/Iron man have been lost..and not replaced. Regards Mr.Mark
Post,get the widescreen version..Read full review...

Just a spark

Here’s a relatively unknown classic about the quest for fire in those days when tribes struggled to survive and fire was their hope. Somehow thru the natural order of things there was a connection made and love blossomed between the two individuals of the two tribes who were competing for the prize. Heart warmingRead full review...

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