Search - The Power of One on DVD

MPAA Rating: PG-13 Content Advisory: Violence, Questionable for Children Movie Release: 1992 DVD Release: 06/22/1999 Format: DVD - Soft-Matted WSE for 16x9 TV Audio Tracks: English SwapaDVD Credits: 1 Number of Discs: 1 Run Time: 2 hrs 7 mins Studio: Warner Home Video Total Copies: 4 Genres: Drama, Message Movie, Coming-of-Age

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

Stephen Dorff - P.K. at age 18
Morgan Freeman - Geel Piet
Armin Mueller-Stahl - Doc
John Gielgud - Headmaster St. John
Maria Marais - Fay Masterson

John G. Avildsen's The Power of One comes to DVD with a widescreen transfer that preserves the original theatrical aspect ratio of 1.85:1. A closed-captioned English soundtrack is rendered in Dolby Digital Surround, while a French soundtrack has been recorded in Dolby Digital Stereo. There are no subtitles on this release. There are no real supplemental materials, but the inexpensive list price for the DVD makes it difficult to complain. ~ Perry Seibert, All Movie Guide