Ken Gampu Movies
Black character actor Ken Gampu first appeared onscreen in the '60s. ~ All Movie Guide- 1999
In this drama, a man dealing with the ghosts of his past defends a child whose cultural dictates differ with the law. Sean Raine (Gavin Hood) was born and raised in South Africa, but during his time as a soldier in that nation's army, he killed a young black man by mistake while fighting in Angola and has been plagued with guilt ever since. He left South Africa soon after; in time, he studied law and became a successful corporate attorney. While visiting South Africa for the first time in nine years, Sean and his wife Jennifer (Janine Eser) meet a herd boy named Sipho (Loyiso Gxwala) during a canoe trip. As they're returning to camp, Sean and Jennifer meet Sipho again, but this time he's in shock, standing motionless with a bloody axe in his hand as his mother carries the body of a baby with a fatal head injury. When questioned, Sipho asserts that what he killed was not a human infant but a tikoloshe, a creature cursed with evil spirits. Sean offers to defend Sipho, and as he stands before the court, he tries to explain to the judge (Nigel Hawthorne) and jury that Sipho was acting sincerely, in accordance with his faith, and therefore did not truly commit a crime. Actor Gavin Hood made his debut as a writer and director with this film, as well as playing the leading role. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Gavin Hood, Nigel Hawthorne, (more)
- 1998
Filmed in South Africa, this lengthy biographical drama details events in the life of 19th-century British imperialist Cecil Rhodes (Martin Shaw) through an extensive series of overlapping flashbacks. The BBC original ran for eight hours, but for telecasting in the United States, the BBC edited the film down to six hours. The U.S. premiere was on PBS' Masterpiece Theater on January 4-6, 1998. ~ Bhob Stewart, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Russell Baker, Martin Shaw, (more)
It's off to Africa for a former B-ball player who'd like to find a top-notch basketball recruit to help him become a successful coach. Kevin Bacon has the lead in this Paul Glaser-directed film. ~ All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Kevin Bacon
- 1991
- Add American Ninja 4: The Annihilation to QueueAdd American Ninja 4: The Annihilation to top of Queue
The fourth (and final!) entry in this kick-boxing series, sees the return of Michael Dudikoff as the leading foot flinger. Here a scheming sheik trains a bevy of ninja marauders that he's hoping can help him in his plan to hold the world ransom by holding hostage none other than the city of New York. ~ All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Michael Dudikoff, David Bradley, (more)
- 1991
- R
In this African adventure, a soldier-of-fortune and his followers hack through the jungle in search of a millionaire' daughter who was kidnapped by a tribe as an offering for their hungry crocodile gods. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1989
Ray Sharkey makes one of his last film appearances in 1989's Act of Piracy. Sharkey plays a contemporary buccaneer whose cutthroat gang swipes contractor Gary Busey's technologically advanced yacht. The pirates also inadvertently abduct Busey's children, who remained hidden during the siege. With no money to ransom his captive offspring, Busey undertakes his own rescue mission. Slow going until the slam-bang finale, Act of Piracy is acceptable nonthink entertainment. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Gary Busey, Belinda Bauer, (more)
- 1987
- PG13
Tom Reed (Kenneth Gilman) is a University of Florida ornithologist whose interest in vultures causes him to be mistaken for an international secret agent know as "vulture man." With his former flame and neighbor Kimberly Blake (Brenda Bakke), Tom is tracked by the CIA, the KGB, and African drug runners throughout the dark continent. The duo tries to survive in this low-budget comedy spy thriller. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Kenneth David Gilman, Brenda Bakke, (more)
- 1987
- R
South African medical examiner Joe Stewardson investigates a rash of prostitute murders, all with the same gruesome MO. While pursuing this case, Stewardson is pressured by the government to declare that the death of a known black activist, killed while in police custody, was due to heart failure. Sympathetic to the activist's cause, Stewardson refuses to falsify his report. Then he learns that the prostitute killings are the handiwork of other black extremists, who argue that they're justified in venting their wrath on the white establishment by whatever means possible. Unable to determine who's right or wrong anymore, Stewardson pulls out of the controversy-and, simultaneously, out of life. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Joe Stewardson, Ian Yule, (more)
An adventure tale for movie buffs, Jake Speed deftly lifts scenes from detective films of the '40s through the '70s to bring an added dimension to its spoof of the detective and adventure genres. When a family gets word that their daughter has been kidnapped in Paris, her father comments that they should get "Jake Speed" to find her. However, Jake is a comic strip character, and the reaction is that he might as well ask for Batman. But lo-and-behold, the other daughter Margaret (Karen Kopins) gets a message to meet Speed (Wayne Crawford) and his author, Remo (Dennis Christopher), and the men tell her they must go to Africa, where her sister is being held. After a certain amount of trial and error, they eventually find the nation where she's being held -- which happens to be in the middle of a revolution. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Wayne Crawford, Dennis Christopher, (more)
- 1985
- R
Two racially different convicts escape from captivity while they are chained together. ~ Kristie Hassen, All Movie Guide
- 1985
Based on a novel of the same title by Uwe Timm and set in 1904 in South Africa, this is an uneven tale of war and intrigue between native South Africans, German colonialists, and British colonialists, a war no one really wins. Gottschalk (Jacques Breuer) and Wenstrup (Edwin Noel) are two German veterinarians who have settled in German Southwest Africa to tend to the needs of cattle ranchers. When a rebellion by a local dissident named Morenga (Ken Gampu) is brutally crushed by the Germans, the two vets get involved, at great risk to themselves, and offer help to the native revolutionaries. What follows is a sequence of battles and skirmishes that ultimately lead to Morenga seeking asylum in South Africa, where the ruling Brits are about as trustworthy as their German counterparts. Morenga was nominated for a Golden Bear award at the 1985 Berlin Film Festival.
~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jacques Breuer, Jurgen Holtz, (more)
The action in this routine adventure film would be modeled on the enormously successful Indiana Jones but it is too much, too fast, too deja vu. It all starts when Jessie Huston (Sharon Stone, before stardom) talks adventurer Allen Quatermain (Richard Chamberlain) into helping her find her father, an archaeologist. He has been kidnapped in Africa by a Turk (John Rhys-Davies) and a German colonel (Herbert Lom) who are determined to extract the secret location of King Solomon's mines from the stubborn man. As Jessie and Quatermain head off into the unknown, there are crocodiles, lions, and other human beasts to conquer before the father or the mines hove into view. A sequel was soon to follow. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Richard Chamberlain, Sharon Stone, (more)
Kalahari bushman Xi (played by genuine bushman N!xau) is as surprised as the rest of his tibe when a Coke bottle, thrown from a passing plane, lands in the middle of their village. This "gift from the gods" proves to be a mixed blessing when the tribesmen fight over it and eventually use it for a weapon. To keep peace in the village, Xi is assigned to take the bottle to "the end of the earth" (actually a lush valley) and throw it back to the gods. Meanwhile, back in urbanized South Africa, Kate Thompson (Sandra Prinsloo) leaves her office job in the city to take a job teaching Kalahari children; once in the wilderness, she finds herself constantly bumping into clumsy microbiologist Andrew Steyn (Marius Weyers). And meanwhile, maniacal Sam Boga (Louw Verwey) is leading a military coup against the government. How do all these various and wildly divergent characters fit together? You'll have to see The Gods Must be Crazy yourself--if you haven't seen it already. This Botswanian comedy/melodrama was directed by Jamie Uys, who had helmed dozens of films before Gods and would make many more afterwards. Originally slated for limited domestic distribution in 1982, Gods Must Be Crazy was picked up for American consumption by 20th Century-Fox in 1984. Within a few weeks, "word of mouth" transformed Gods into the biggest foreign boxoffice hit ever released in the U.S. The 1989 sequel didn't do quite as well, indicating that perhaps the bloom was off the rose for N!xau and his confreres. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Marius Weyers, Sandra Prinsloo, (more)
- 1981
- PG
Ivan Hall directs the martial arts action film Kill and Kill Again. Martial arts champion Steve Chase is hired to save the Nobel Prize winning scientist Horatio Kane, who has been kidnapped by a rich, evil genius named Marduk. Chase assembles a team of mercenaries who must overcome treacherous encounters on their way to the villain's stronghold and then fight for their lives after they themselves are captured. ~ Perry Seibert, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- James Ryan, Anneline Kriel, (more)
- 1980
- R
A better than average cast, headed by Nigel Davenport, hypes the quality of the low-budget meller Soul Patrol. The protagonist is a black newspaper reporter, working in a racially explosive community. Sensing dirty work afoot, the reporter butts heads with the all-white police department. The bigoted chief exacts vengeance on the reporter, but he refuses to give up. An orgy of violence is just around the corner at every turn; how long before the anticipated bloodbath? ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
This film depicts the events prior to the devastating conflict that occurred in 1879 when British soldiers were held siege by thousands of Zulu warriors. Fifteen hundred soldiers were killed in the epic battle. This film portrays the tensions existing between the tribal factions and the British invaders. ~ Iotis Erlewine, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Burt Lancaster, Peter O'Toole, (more)
- 1979
- R
In this drama, a black man fights for freedom from racial oppression in the troubled country of Rhodesia. ~ Iotis Erlewine, All Movie Guide
African Rage is a comparatively little-known political thriller, set in an African hospital. Top-billed Anthony Quinn plays a male nurse, assigned to care for a powerful tribal leader (Simon Sabela). With many threats against his well-being, the leader is heavily guarded around the clock. But Quinn manages to kidnap his patient, leading to a series of curious and occasionally confusing plot twists. African Rage was completed in South Africa in 1976 as Tigers Don't Cry, but not put into general American release for nearly nine years. Other alternate titles include Target of an Assassin, The Long Shot, and Fatal Assassin. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
The plot of this of this adaptation of the Daniel Carney's novel, sprinkled throughout a series of extended Sam Peckinpah-inspired action sequences, deals with a collection of mercenary toughguys -- Colonel Allen Faulkner (Richard Burton), Lieutenant Shawn Fynn (Roger Moore), Rafer Janders (Richard Harris), Pieter Coetzee (Hardy Kruger) -- who are hired to parachute into the African bush country and abscond with deposed African president Julius Limbani (Winston Ntshona) and reinstall him as a reigning monarch of an African country, to satisfy British mercantile interests. The action sequences were successful enough to spawn a sequel -- appropriately titled Wild Geese II. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Richard Burton, Roger Moore, (more)
- 1977
Set in 19th-century Africa, this film chronicles the horrors of the slave trade and the relationship between an Arab slave-trader and the people he sees as goods to be bought and sold. ~ Iotis Erlewine, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Trevor Howard, Ron Ely, (more)
- 1976
Also known as Lollipop and E Lollipop, Forever Young, Forever Free is a studied piece of whimsy filmed in South Africa and Harlem. Norman Knox plays a white orphan installed in a South African mission; his best friend is black foundling Muntu Ben Louis Ndebele. When Norman requires emergency surgery, he is flown to New York, where he bemoans the fact that he has been separated from his black chum. Whereupon, Muntu and priest Jose Fesser jet to the big apple themselves--but Muntu gets lost in the airport, and winds up in Harlem under the supervision of social worker Karen Valentine. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- José Ferrer, Karen Valentine, (more)
- 1976
With only an ancient medallion to guide him, a British explorer launches an adventure-packed expedition to a mysterious lost Phoenician city in the heart of Africa were Solomon's fabulous treasure is said to be hidden in this low-budget Canadian fantasy-adventure. During the dangerous journey, the treasure hunters encounter dinosaur guardians and an exquisitely statuesque Phoenician queen. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
In the bush country of South Africa in the late 19th century, chauvinistic hunter Gert vanDen Bergh calculatedly offends a local tribal chief. Given several opportunities, he refuses to apologize. As consequence, vanDen Bergh and the rest of his hunting party are captured by the tribesmen and grotesquely tortured to death. The only white man spared is safari-guide Cornel Wilde, whom the natives respect and vice versa. The tribesmen offer Wilde a chance to survive; stripping him naked and giving him a knife to defend himself, they set Wilde free in the jungle, in preparation of hunting him down like a lion. Given a head start equal to the distance one of the tribesman can fire an arrow, Wilde is pursued by the tribe's six most accomplished warriors. The rest of this thrill-a-minute film follows Wilde into the underbrush in his desperate, resourceful flight for life. Cornel Wilde's The Naked Prey was filmed entirely on location under circumstances nearly as dangerous as the plight of its protagonist. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Cornel Wilde, Gert Van Den Bergh, (more)
