Adaptated from the album Asterix and the Great Crossing
Screenplay: Adapted by Albert Uderzo and Pierre Tchernia
Original title: Astérix et les Indiens
Produced by: EXTRAFILM PRODUKTION GmbH BERLIN
Directed by: Jurgen Wohlrabe Produktion and Gerhard Hahn Film
Running time: 80min
Video distribution: PFC VIDEO
What the druids have to say about the film
Available in VHS.
The production of the film is a long story, involving several nationalities, and ending up by being German! As Gaumont was dissatisfied with the results of the last Asterix (the production not having pulled off its communication campaign on “Operation Getafix”), and did not want to continue investing in a cartoon studio, Extrafilm set itself up as sole producer.
The film was directed by G. Hahn, a cartoon film maker, in one of the first ‘squats’ following the fall of the Berlin Wall, in former East Berlin. It continues the graphic quality of the previous film while developing a script that wanders a little from the original work.
For the sake of posterity, we will say that Albert Uderzo and his team allowed the film to be an Asterix one, in spite of the German director Hahn claiming straight-faced that he had more humour than Asterix’s author by wanting to introduce scenes of Vitalstatistix, our well-known chief, pulling fish out of his trousers and asking his friends to sniff them to see if they really smelt of fish. Being a delicate and sensitive soul, René would certainly have enjoyed that.