• Genre: Drama
• MPAA Rating: PG13
• AMG Rating:
• Regional Coding: 1
  USA and territories, Canada

John G. Avildsen, director of Rocky and The Karate Kid, adapts Bryce Courtenay's compassionate novel about the coming of age of a white anti-apartheid activist during the years of World War II in South Africa. Avildsen cumbersomely grafts Courtenay's tale of fighting apartheid onto a Hollywood-style fight-for-the-championship bout. Seven-year-old P.K. (Guy Witcher) is a white South African raised on his family's farm by his Zulu nanny. When his mother takes ill, he is sent away to an Afrikaner boarding school, where he is picked on and nearly killed by the school bully during a pep rally for Hitler. P.K. survives and is sent to live with his grandfather. He befriends Doc (Armin Mueller-Stahl), a jailed German musician, and a black inmate (Morgan Freeman), who teaches P.K. how to use his fists for some quick boxing moves. At 12, P.K. (now played by Simon Fenton), witnesses black inmates being cruelly humiliated by their racist white jailers. Taking note of P.K.'s fluidity for languages, his black mentor spreads the word that P.K. is the incarnation of the mythic Rain Maker, a messianic liberator who is destined to unite all the African tribes. By the time he's 18 years old, P.K. (now played by Stephen Dorff) is becoming the Great White Hope for the black Africans, boxing his way into their hearts and minds. He joins up with an old boxing foe (Alois Moyo), who is now a township activist, and takes up the apartheid struggle. But things get confusing when P.K. falls in love with the daughter (Fay Masterson) of an apartheid leader. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide

Bonus Features

• [None specified]

Actors

Stephen Dorff, Morgan Freeman, Armin Mueller-Stahl, John Gielgud, Maria Marais, Simon Fenton, Guy Witcher, Daniel Craig, Alois Moyo, Ian Roberts, Marius Weyers

Director

John G. Avildsen

Producer

Arnon Milchan, Roy Button

Violence, Questionable for Children

• Sound :
• Language : Eng
• Subtitles :

• Screen : WSE(SM)
• Oar :
• Dar :

Review

The late '80s and early '90s saw numerous stories of Afrikaner atrocities hit the big screen -- so many, in fact, that it became a challenge to differentiate between them. With John G. Avildsen at the helm, The Power of One should be easy to remember as "the boxing one." Truth be told, though, pugilism is only a small part of this sprawling story of early apartheid, as the director of such crowd pleasers as Rocky and The Karate Kid evolves into an artist equal to the epic sweep of tragedy and history. Avildsen and screenwriter Robert Mark Kamen, his Karate Kid collaborator, send the viewer on the same journey of lost innocence the protagonist endures, following the young P.K. (Guy Witcher) from the point of his earliest childhood traumas, and making him easily relatable. Set against the African plains (lushly shot by Dean Semler), this section establishes the tensions not only between Afrikaners and blacks, but Afrikaners and the English, which contextualize many of the events that follow. The young Witcher's narration hits a disarmingly matter-of-fact tone. The actors chosen to play P.K. at his next two ages can't quite match the child actor's presence, though Stephen Dorff, often cast as a rascal, is plenty charming here. With the help of some choice supporting performances (Daniel Craig as a vicious Afrikaner officer, Morgan Freeman as a saintly prisoner), The Power of One tells a rousing story of struggles against injustice -- compromised only slightly by the fact that it's not based on actual events. It's got some decent boxing scenes as well, but they're secondary to the larger themes Avildsen brings to the screen in his most mature effort. Too bad he couldn't build on it -- he relapsed to a small-time bull-riding movie, 8 Seconds, as his next project. ~ Derek Armstrong, All Movie Guide

• Release Date : June 22, 1999
• Length : 127 Minutes
• Dvdsides : 1
• Dvddiscs : 1
• Upc : 085391241126