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Three anthropology students, Rika (Enny Haryono), Amri (Barry Prima)
and Tommy (Johann Mardjono), are taken deep into the jungle on a raft by
their guide Bisma (Rukman Herman) and their native guide Lahang (Jafarpee
York) to find some stone age native tribe to build their thesis on. But
then the raft is wrecked, the quintet is separated, and the guides prove
to be of little use: Lahang walks into a native trap eyes wide open and is
brutally killed, and Bisma gets eaten up by a crocodile. Rika and Amri are
taken captive by some natives, who do have cannibalistic traits - but
never really show them. They do torture Rika and Amri for a bit, though,
but when one of the tribesmen tries to rape Rika one night, he is
castrated by the rest of the tribe. Soon enough, Amri and Rika come to the
conclusion they have to escape. Interestingly enough, of all our heroes,
Tommy, who has always seemed to be the klutzy one, holds up the best, he
manages to stay away from traps, crocodiles or natives, and manages to
trail Rika and Amri to the native village they've been kept at - and he
arrives just in time to join them in their escape. Interestingly, our
heroes, who should try to get as far away as they can, take a break at a
waterfall to refresh themselves, and Amri and Rika are musing over
returning to the native village one day to study the natives, claiming
they have seen their inherent beauty - then though it turns out the
natives have caught up with them, and Amri and Rika don't see their beauty
no more, and our three heroes can't do anything but run. Eventually, Amri
manages to kill one of the natives' chieftains, and the other natives take
some time out to properly bury the man - but by that time Tommy has
already caught a spear, which seriously slows down the escape of our three
explorers. They however reach the river and manage to build a raft before
the natives manage to catch up, and once they're on the raft and drift
away, the natives don't follow because the river is sacred to them. Tommy
however dies during the getaway ... Now I love jungle movies,
always had a soft spot for cannibal movies, and Indonesia with its
multitude of authentic locations should be the perfect place to shoot a
jungle cannibal movie, right? Well, on paper that's totally right, but
carried by a less than exciting script, mediocre actors and a rather
indifferent direction, Primitif just hasn't got all that much to
offer. And when it comes to violence and gore, key ingredients of the
cannibal genre, the film is definitely on the weak side - apart from a
handful unnecessarily cruel animal killings of course. That all said, for
real jungleflick afficionados like myself, there is still something to see
in this one (including some unintentional humour of course), it's just by
far not the film it could/should have been.
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amazon.co.uk
amazon.de
eThaiCD.com
find Primitives at adultvideouniverse.com
