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The Gods Must Be Crazy is a film released in 1980, written and directed by Jamie Uys. Set in Botswana and South Africa, it tells the story of Xi (IPA: [gi]), a Bushman of the Kalahari Desert (played by Namibian bush farmer N!xau) whose band has no knowledge of the world beyond. The film is followed by four sequels, the final three of which were made in Hong Kong. Image File history File links Size of this preview: 385 × 599 pixelsFull resolution (485 × 755 pixel, file size: 100 KB, MIME type: image/jpeg) Film poster for The Gods Must Be Crazy This image is being linked here; though the picture is subject to copyright, I (gren グレン) feel it is...
Jacobus Johannes Uys (30 May 1921 – 29 January 1996), better known as Jamie Uys, was a South African film director. ...
N!xau (or earlier G!kau; December 16, 1944 - July 1, 2003) was a Namibian bush farmer who was made famous by his roles in the movie The Gods Must Be Crazy and its sequels, in which he played the Kalahari Bushman Xixo. ...
Prinsloo in The Gods Must Be Crazy (1980) Sandra Prinsloo, also known as Sandra Prinzlow, ia a South African actor. ...
Actor who played Andrew Steyn in the movie, The Gods Must be Crazy ...
Motto: (Out Of Many, One) (traditional) In God We Trust (1956 to date) Anthem: The Star-Spangled Banner Capital Washington D.C. Largest city New York City None at federal level (English de facto) Government Federal constitutional republic - President George Walker Bush (R) - Vice President Dick Cheney (R) Independence from...
Twentieth (20th) Century Fox Film Corporation (known from 1935 to 1985 as Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation) is one of the six major American film studios. ...
This article or section does not adequately cite its references or sources. ...
DVD (Digital Versatile Disc or Digital Video Disc) is an optical disc storage media format that can be used for data storage, including movies with high video and sound quality. ...
is the 194th day of the year (195th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ...
Year 1984 (MCMLXXXIV) was a leap year starting on Sunday (link displays the 1984 Gregorian calendar). ...
The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ...
Look up Wiktionary:Swadesh lists for Afrikaans and Dutch in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...
Film is a term that encompasses individual motion pictures, the field of film as an art form, and the motion picture industry. ...
Jacobus Johannes Uys (30 May 1921 – 29 January 1996), better known as Jamie Uys, was a South African film director. ...
Articles with similar titles include the NATO phonetic alphabet, which has also informally been called the “International Phonetic Alphabetâ€. For information on how to read IPA transcriptions of English words, see IPA chart for English. ...
The Bushmen, San, Basarwa, !Kung or Khwe are indigenous people of the Kalahari Desert, which spans areas of South Africa, Botswana, Namibia and Angola. ...
The Kalahari Desert is a large arid to semi-arid sandy area in southern Kgalagadi Africa extending 900,000 km² (362,500 sq. ...
N!xau (or earlier G!kau; December 16, 1944 - July 1, 2003) was a Namibian bush farmer who was made famous by his roles in the movie The Gods Must Be Crazy and its sequels, in which he played the Kalahari Bushman Xixo. ...
This article does not cite any references or sources. ...
The Gods Must Be Crazy I & II The first two films both present the Bushmen as noble savages leading a simple, fairly utopian life in contrast with western culture. There are several slapstick situations, accentuated by the use of fast motion. A section of Benjamin Wests The Death of General Wolfe; Wests depiction of this Native American has been considered an idealization in the tradition of the Noble savage (Fryd, 75) In the 18th century culture of Primitivism the noble savage, uncorrupted by the influences of civilization was considered...
Leonardo da Vincis Vitruvian Man, for many a symbol of the changes of the Western culture during the Renaissance Western culture or Western civilization is a term used to generally refer to most of the cultures of European origin and most of their descendants. ...
Slapstick is a type of comedy involving exaggerated physical violence. ...
Fast motion, also called accelerated motion, is an effect resulting from running film through a movie camera at slower-than-normal speed. ...
These films, and the songs of Miriam Makeba, are probably the only exposure to a click consonant language for most people living outside of southwest Africa.[citation needed] Conversely, the arrival of a Coca-Cola bottle thrown from a passing light aircraft represents the only exposure that the bushmen have with western culture, reminiscent of so-called New Guinean 'Cargo Cults'.[citation needed] Miriam Makeba performing at the Cape Town Jazz Festival in 2006. ...
Clicks are stops produced with two articulatory closures in the oral cavity. ...
The wave shape (known as the dynamic ribbon device) present on all Coca-Cola cans throughout the world derives from the contour of the original Coca-Cola bottles. ...
New Guinea, located just north of Australia, is the worlds second largest island, having become separated from the Australian mainland when the area now known as the Torres Strait flooded around 5000 BC. The name Papua has also been long-associated with the island: this is discussed further under...
The article is about cargo cults as a religious phenomenon. ...
While a large Western white audience found the films funny, there was considerable debate about its racial politics. The portrayal of Xi (particularly in the first film) as the naive innocent incapable of understanding the ways of the "gods" was viewed by some as patronising and insulting. The film was banned in Trinidad and Tobago for this reason. However, its many fans believe that it is exactly the opposite, a send-up of so-called civilization and condemnation of racism with Xi as the hero.
Some of the debate centered on Xi's reaction to the first white people he met, assuming they were gods since they were strange (he had only known Bushmen before), rode vehicles (which he also had never seen before), and were comparatively huge. However, within minutes he began doubting they were gods. The second film clearly shows Xi's greater understanding as he tells the children about the people he had met: "heavy people ... who seem to know some magic that can make things move," but are "not very bright, because they can't survive without their magic contrivances."
It should also be noted that the films' depictions of the Bushmen, even if they were accurate in the 1980s (also a source of debate), are clearly no longer accurate. The DVD's special feature "Journey to Nyae Nyae" (N!xau's homeland in northeastern Namibia), filmed in 2003, demonstrates this. The Bushmen, San, Basarwa, !Kung or Khwe are indigenous people of the Kalahari Desert, which spans areas of South Africa, Botswana, Namibia and Angola. ...
The Gods Must Be Crazy The first film is a collision of three separate stories — Xi's, the romance between a klutzy scientist and a schoolteacher, and a band of terrorists on the run.
The bushmen of Xi's group are living well off the land. They are happy because the "gods" have provided plenty of everything, so no one in the tribe has unfilled wants. One day, the pilot of a passing airplane drops a glass Coke bottle. Initially, this strange artifact seems to be a boon from the gods — Xi's people find many uses for it. But unlike anything that they have had before, there is only one bottle to share among all members of the group. They soon find themselves experiencing things they never had before: envy, hatred, even violence. The wave shape (known as the dynamic ribbon device) present on all Coca-Cola cans throughout the world derives from the contour of the original Coca-Cola bottles. ...
It is decided that the bottle, renamed "the evil thing", must be thrown off of the edge of the world. Xi volunteers for the task. As he travels on his quest, he encounters western civilization for the first time. The film presents an interesting interpretation of civilization as viewed through Xi's perceptions.
There are also plot lines about biologist Andrew Steyn (Marius Weyers) who is studying the local animals, and the newly-hired village school teacher Kate Thompson (Sandra Prinsloo), and some guerrillas who are being pursued by government troops after unsuccessfully attempting a coup. Xi encounters both groups. Actor who played Andrew Steyn in the movie, The Gods Must be Crazy ...
Prinsloo in The Gods Must Be Crazy (1980) Sandra Prinsloo, also known as Sandra Prinzlow, ia a South African actor. ...
Guerrilla warfare (also guerilla) is the unconventional warfare and combat with which small group combatants (usually civilians) use mobile tactics (ambushes, raids, etc) to combat a larger, less mobile formal army. ...
// A coup dÉtat (pronounced ), or simply coup, is the sudden overthrow of a government, often through illegal means by a part of the state establishment — mostly replacing just the high-level figures. ...
 Xi prepares to throw the Coke bottle — the "evil thing" as his family calls it — off the end of the earth, in the first film. Xi eventually finds himself at the top of a cliff with a solid layer of low-lying clouds obscuring the landscape below. This gives Xi the convincing illusion that it is indeed the edge of the world, and he throws the bottle from there. This was filmed at a place called God's Window in what was then called the Eastern Transvaal, South Africa (now a separate province called Mpumalanga). This is at the edge of the escarpment between the high and low-velds of South Africa. Image File history File links Xi_at_end_of_earth. ...
Image File history File links Xi_at_end_of_earth. ...
Gods Window Escarpment is a popular vantage point along the Blyde River Canyon, in South Africa. ...
Mpumalanga, (name changed from Eastern Transvaal on 24 August 1995), is a province in South Africa. ...
The Highveld is a high plateau area of South Africa which includes the largest metropolitan area in the country, Johannesburg. ...
The term Veld, or Veldt, refers primarily (but not exclusively) to the wide open rural spaces of South Africa or southern Africa and in particular to certain flatter areas or districts covered in grass or low scrub. ...
The term Veld, or Veldt, refers primarily (but not exclusively) to the wide open rural spaces of South Africa or southern Africa and in particular to certain flatter areas or districts covered in grass or low scrub. ...
The biologist's mode of transportation is an early Series I Land Rover with no brakes and tight piston rings, making it difficult to start. Dubbed "The Anti-Christ" by his mechanic, Mpudi, the biologist's misadventures with the cantankerous Land Rover make up some of the most hilarious scenes in the film. This article does not cite any references or sources. ...
The Gods Must Be Crazy II -
Xi Changes his name to Xixo–A sequel, The Gods Must Be Crazy II, was filmed in 1985 but not released until 1989. In it, Xixo's two young children encounter poachers in the Kalahari and explore the back of their truck, and become unable to jump off once it starts moving. Xixo must once again travel great distances to retrieve them, and once again encounters various other western characters who are on quests of their own. The film is notable for the increased role of animals throughout the story, and for its light-hearted treatment of the civil war still raging in nearby Angola at the time. The Gods Must Be Crazy II is a sequel to Jamie Uys 1980 comedy film, The Gods Must Be Crazy. ...
The Kalahari Desert is a large, arid to semi-arid sandy area in southern Africa that covers about 500,000 km². It covers 70% of Botswana, and parts of Zimbabwe, Namibia and South Africa. ...
Combatants MPLA SWAPO Republic of Cuba U.S.S.R. AAF Mozambique[1] UNITA FNLA COMIRA Portugal Republic of South Africa Republic of Zaire U.S.A. France Commanders José Eduardo dos Santos Jonas Savimbi Casualties Civilians killed = hundreds of thousands The Angolan Civil War was a conflict that devastated...
The Gods Must Be Crazy III – V Three further low-budget and unauthorized sequels were filmed in Cantonese by Hong Kong filmmakers, and were intended as pure comedies: This article is on all of the Yue dialects. ...
- Fei zhou he shang (非洲和尚, literally: An African Buddhist Monk) (1991) (a.k.a. Crazy Safari, Vampires Must Be Crazy, or The Gods Must Be Crazy III) (Amazon.com page)
- Heonggong ya fungkwong (1993) (a.k.a. Crazy Hong Kong or Xianggang ye feng kuang (香港也瘋狂, literally: And Hong Kong Goes Crazy, Mandarin title))
- Fei zhou chao ren (非洲超人, literally: An African Superman) (1994) (a.k.a. The Gods Must Be Funny in China)
Crazy Safari (The Gods Must Be Crazy III) An ancient but still fleshy Chinese corpse is on auction in the United States. A young businessman (Billy Chan) purchases the corpse, which is the body of his great-great-great-grandfather, in order to give it a proper burial in Hong Kong. The corpse must become active through the enchanted commands of a Taoist priest to control the corpse's movements, and to keep it from becoming an irrepressible vampire. To achieve this a good-natured Taoist priest (Lam Ching Ying) attaches a yellow talisman with red chinese script to the forehead of the corpse, and this talisman must remain on the corpse's forehead at all times if the priest is to maintain control of the cadaver. The young descendant and the Taoist priest decide the best way to get the valued anscestor home is via a direct flight to Hong Kong on a private jet. Image File history File links Acap. ...
For other uses of the words tao and dao, see Dao (disambiguation). ...
For other uses of the words tao and dao, see Dao (disambiguation). ...
Lam Ching-ying (æž— æ£è‹± real name: Lam Gun-bo æž—æ ¹å¯¶) (born: December 27, 1952 in Shanghai; died November 8, 1997 in Hong Kong) was a Chinese actor, action director and director. ...
During the flight the plane malfunctions, and an altercation breaks out between the ruthless pilot and our heroes. Luckily the priest is a kung fu master, so our heroes (including the grisly auction lot) prevail and abscond from the troublesome plane by using parachutes. The corpse lands in front of N!xau, where he and his tribe are being confronted by a rival clan led by two greedy, merciless white people. The corpse's presence scares away the villains, but only momentarily. N!xau somehow learns to control the corpse, and he takes it to his tribe. Soon he and his family think it is a gift from God, as it aids them in various matters.
The businessman and the priest land in a vast and dry area miles away from N!xau's home. They must face the dangers of lions, rhinoceroses, baboons, and so forth in order to recover the corpse and leave the continent. During this time the corpse forms a strong bond with the warm-hearted and compassionate N!xau and his family. The rival clan is still after what N!xau's homeland has as a natural abundance: diamonds.
As of 2006, these last three films have not been released in the United States, although they have been released on VCD format in China. The Gods Must Be Funny has recently been released on DVD [1] in Uys' native South Africa. Video CD (aka VCD, VideoCD, View CD, Compact Disc digital video) is a standard digital format for storing video on a Compact Disc. ...
DVD (Digital Versatile Disc or Digital Video Disc) is an optical disc storage media format that can be used for data storage, including movies with high video and sound quality. ...
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