The Hunt for the Hidden Relic (2002)

Touches You

the audience applauded

Fresh and Exciting

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

To begin with the good : "Das Jesus Video" does have entertainment value, at least for viewers willing not to overthink things. The science-fiction angle is barely examined but there is a lot of adventure and suspense against a background of historical monuments or exotic scenery. Pursuits, assassins, secret societies, culturally important landmarks, age-old conspiracies, Documents That Might Change The World As We Know It : we're clearly in Dan Brown country rather than in the Holy Land, although the series, I'll give it that, takes itself less seriously than Dan Brown's oeuvre does. It's a professionally made little B-series of the popcorn variety, and should be watched (and appreciated) as such. I would not necessarily encourage the actors (the blond protagonist included) to go and tackle some of the great Shakespearian tragedies, but again, this is pretty much par for the course.However, our blond hero does look spectacularly trim and handsome, especially in shorts and underpants. He continues to look spectacularly trim and handsome, even when getting punched and beaten up like a giant stress ball. The same goes for those scenes where he is getting tortured or being threatened with torture. (Strangely, none of this causes him to get hospitalized for fourteen months or so.)Which rather brings me to one of the negatives : there are some pretty weird undercurrents here. I get the impression that some of the material, especially the torture scenes, might be of considerable interest to psychiatrists. Hell, I can picture a seminar full of psychiatrists making notes, using quite a lot of words beginning with dys- or ending in -pathy and -phobia.Finally it needs to be said that the ending is frustrating, since it does not offer any clear dénouement or resolution, and this after hours of pursuits, explosions and double-crosses. It's quite possible that it was designed to be mysterious and tantalizing, but still, frustrating is the word...

I saw this in the video store titled "Ancient Relic" and was intrigued, knowing nothing about it. When I started watching it, I was impressed with the production values, the music, the look of the cast and then they opened their mouths: DUBBED! I quickly stopped the DVD, went to the menu expecting to switch to German dialogue with English subtitles, only to find no such option existed. The only way to watch it was dubbed. Doh! And watch it I did. It was a fun a little story that really needed to be cut down to 2 hours, but otherwise a joy to look at. The music was enthralling and the story interesting. But the producer or the distributor and definitely most of the dubbing actors (if you can call them actors) needed to be shot for the dreadful blow they dealt to this film (oh and let's not forget the voice casting director!). The lackluster voice performances destroyed any compelling drama the original production might have had. There is no way to adequately judge a movie that has been dubbed, beyond the story and production values. It further disturbs me that our country has gotten so lazy that we would rather listen to a badly dubbed movie than feel the drama of the original performance and read the subtitles, so much so some production or distribution executive decided not to spend the money on offering a subtitled original language version. I sat riveted to "Das Boot" in the original German, even as I read the English translation. Not that this is anything as brilliant as Das Boot, but come on, the weaker the content the more you need to give it every edge possible. Frankly I think this was a fine film, definitely entertaining and definitely worth watching -- otherwise I would have turned it off within the first 15 minutes of the horrible dubbing job. It is most unfortunate that someone in power was so bone-headed as to actually think this version would be acceptable to anyone, much less represent the film the way the director intended. I might have given the film an 8 if not for the poor dubbing. But I enjoyed watching it enough to recommend to others despite the bad English dub.

Fist of all, there are no ideal movies in this world, because this is to personal meaning. It is great for me. Yesterday in Russia we had Pacha(Christian holiday) and this film was shown deeply at night, 2 parts at once. Someone here sad that the main character could act just with his his eyebrows, but I think that's not because of bad actor game, that is because of character specific. It is hard to imagine such things would happen for real, so you can only guess how the real person would act. Also, I don't think the good film should be expensive. And sometimes I hate Hoolliwood movies and there actors/ You want good European actor to act like all them? Thera are the same! And the fact, that they act not just with there eyebrows doesn't mean they do it well.

There is a mix of people who have seen this movie and / or read the book. Many said it was bad and many said it was great. I haven't read the book (well, I really don't like reading books) but I thought the movie was great. Action packed with a twist at the end. While it isn't Hollywood material, lets face it - it is much better than some of the Hollywood movies out there (like The Pacifier and The Shaggy Dog).Its a great movie to watch and very enjoyable. But wish the DVD had subtitles in English (and other languages too). Very enjoyable and worth watching.