This movie was directed by Jean-Claude Van Damme. Do I need to say anything more about it?
Okay, if you insist.
The Quest is about a man who journeys across the world to take part in a martial arts tournament to crown the world's greatest fighter. I know that describes several of Van Damme's films, but this is the one set in the 1920s. Chris Dubois (Jean-Claude Van Damme) is the acrobatic and not-at-all-child-molestery leader of a gang of street urchins. Chris decides to use his young followers to steal from the Mafia, which is possibly the worst idea anyone has ever had. When the gangsters try to get their money back, a kid gets shot and Chris flees from the police. He runs because another kid tells him the cops will blame him for the shooting, even though that doesn't make any sense given how it happened, but Chris being highly suggestible is a recurring theme through this story.
Chris winds up a stowaway on a ship, forced to work in chains, until that ship is attacked by the forces of Lord Edgar Dobbs (Roger Moore). A pirate, con man and all around scalawag, Dobbs sells Chris into slavery on an island of Muay Tai fighters. 6 months later, Dobbs runs into Chris at a Muay Tai fighting match and Chris insists that Dobbs help him enter a secret combat tournament in Tibet, not so Chris can win but so they can steal the winner's giant gold dragon prize. Oh, Chris and Dobbs also join up with a female journalist named Carrie (Janet Gunn) and I sure hope Van Damme was banging this chick because there's no other reason for the character to exist.
Tagging along with Maxie Devine (James Remar), the American heavyweight boxing champion invited to the secret tournament, they make their way to Tibet. After a scuffle where Chris literally kicks Maxie once and punches him once, Maxie decides that Chris is the better fighter and offers him his spot in the tournament.
Then we finally get to all the fighting, which turns out to be disappointingly brief and generic. Except for the Brazilian fighter and the Chinese fighter engaging in a dance off, the Japanese fighter demonstrating the martial art of being morbidly obese and a Spanish fighter apparently trained in the deadly skill of flamenco dancing, there's nothing at all interesting about the combat. The designated bad guy turns out to be a Mongolian (Abdel Qissi), of all things, who glares a lot and kills somebody that was supposed to be a friend of Chris', even though the two characters barely said 6 words to each other in the entire movie. Chris and the Mongolian fight and Chris wins because this film was not directed by Abdel Qissi.
The Quest is bad. I know that's not exactly a surprise, but Van Damme's ability as a storyteller is so derivative it's not even interestingly bad. Instead of doing some howlingly incompetent stuff, Van Damme is just mimicking things he's seen in other films, including what I believe is an homage to Clint Eastwood's Every Which Way But Loose. The script is written at the level of a 10 year old and the direction looks like any other terrible Van Damme flick.
If this thing had been hilariously awful, that might have somewhat redeemed it. Instead, it's just another crappy step on Van Damme's career trajectory from nobody to action star to living joke.
Okay, if you insist.
The Quest is about a man who journeys across the world to take part in a martial arts tournament to crown the world's greatest fighter. I know that describes several of Van Damme's films, but this is the one set in the 1920s. Chris Dubois (Jean-Claude Van Damme) is the acrobatic and not-at-all-child-molestery leader of a gang of street urchins. Chris decides to use his young followers to steal from the Mafia, which is possibly the worst idea anyone has ever had. When the gangsters try to get their money back, a kid gets shot and Chris flees from the police. He runs because another kid tells him the cops will blame him for the shooting, even though that doesn't make any sense given how it happened, but Chris being highly suggestible is a recurring theme through this story.
Chris winds up a stowaway on a ship, forced to work in chains, until that ship is attacked by the forces of Lord Edgar Dobbs (Roger Moore). A pirate, con man and all around scalawag, Dobbs sells Chris into slavery on an island of Muay Tai fighters. 6 months later, Dobbs runs into Chris at a Muay Tai fighting match and Chris insists that Dobbs help him enter a secret combat tournament in Tibet, not so Chris can win but so they can steal the winner's giant gold dragon prize. Oh, Chris and Dobbs also join up with a female journalist named Carrie (Janet Gunn) and I sure hope Van Damme was banging this chick because there's no other reason for the character to exist.
Tagging along with Maxie Devine (James Remar), the American heavyweight boxing champion invited to the secret tournament, they make their way to Tibet. After a scuffle where Chris literally kicks Maxie once and punches him once, Maxie decides that Chris is the better fighter and offers him his spot in the tournament.
Then we finally get to all the fighting, which turns out to be disappointingly brief and generic. Except for the Brazilian fighter and the Chinese fighter engaging in a dance off, the Japanese fighter demonstrating the martial art of being morbidly obese and a Spanish fighter apparently trained in the deadly skill of flamenco dancing, there's nothing at all interesting about the combat. The designated bad guy turns out to be a Mongolian (Abdel Qissi), of all things, who glares a lot and kills somebody that was supposed to be a friend of Chris', even though the two characters barely said 6 words to each other in the entire movie. Chris and the Mongolian fight and Chris wins because this film was not directed by Abdel Qissi.
The Quest is bad. I know that's not exactly a surprise, but Van Damme's ability as a storyteller is so derivative it's not even interestingly bad. Instead of doing some howlingly incompetent stuff, Van Damme is just mimicking things he's seen in other films, including what I believe is an homage to Clint Eastwood's Every Which Way But Loose. The script is written at the level of a 10 year old and the direction looks like any other terrible Van Damme flick.
If this thing had been hilariously awful, that might have somewhat redeemed it. Instead, it's just another crappy step on Van Damme's career trajectory from nobody to action star to living joke.