[3] Against his wishes, spoiled New York City teen Harry Winslow accompanies his father to Africa's Kalahari Desert to spend time with family acquaintances Paul and Elizabeth Parker.

He clashes with the Parkers' spirited 14-year-old daughter Nonnie, who wants to follow in her dad's footsteps as a wildlife commissioner fighting Africa's elephant poachers.

At dawn, Nonnie returns to the house to discover that her parents and Harry's father have been murdered for investigating the export of ivory, a poaching operation secretly run by Paul Parker's associate, John Ricketts.

Over the next two months, the runaways dig up plant roots for sustenance, and Xhabbo teaches Harry how to speak his native language and hunt gemsbok.

Col. Theron remains convinced that the Parkers' death was a corporate conspiracy and continues his tireless search for the exporters' store of elephant tusks, which he believes will lead him to the killer.

Producer Eva Monley obtained the rights to Laurens van der Post's novels A Story Like the Wind and A Far Off Place in 1980.

[4] Sarel Bok, a musician of Bushman descent, was cast in April 1992, after being discovered in Cape Town, South Africa.

[5] Walt Disney Pictures released the third Roger Rabbit animated short film, Trail Mix-up, theatrically with A Far Off Place.

[10] In addition, Ebert positively cited "the scenes where the young Bushman (Sarel Bok) teaches...survival lore, tells [the kids] the legends of his people, and laughs uproariously at their Westernized behavior".

[10] He lamented the film's strengths gave way to tired plot conventions and scenes of violence that are arguably above a PG rating.

He considered the plot "borderline-slow but head-on straight", and said that the "frank treatment of death makes this iffy for young kids, but older children should find it rewarding".