The plot, set in 1925, follows New York thief Chris Dubois (Van Damme) who is sold into slavery by Lord Edgar Dobbs (Moore) and, after receiving Muay Thai training in Siam, enters an ancestral martial arts tournament in Tibet to earn back his freedom.

Hyped as Van Damme's be-all end-all martial arts film, it had a complex development and was the subject of several grievances by the star's former friend, Frank Dux.

Eventually, the crew decides Dubois is no longer needed, but before he can be killed, the pirate ship is attacked and boarded by a mercenary Englishman, Lord Edgar Dobbs.

Dobbs later assists (and exploits) Dubois, buying his freedom so the now-expert fighter can represent the U.S. in a Kumite-like tournament called the Ghang-gheng, held in the Lost City of Tibet.

There, representatives of Germany, Soviet Union, Scotland, Spain, Turkey, Brazil, Korea, Siam, Greece, France, China, Japan, Okinawa, Africa, and Mongolia fight in elimination bouts.

Dubois ultimately wins the tournament by defeating Khan, the representative of Mongolia, and he is given a medal and proclaimed the greatest fighter, but does not accept the Golden Dragon.

[citation needed] Van Damme presented the project as his farewell to the genre that had made him famous via films like Bloodsport and Lionheart,[9] and aimed to mix the secret tournament concept of the former with the cachet of classic adventure movies.

[3] The film started life at Epic Productions, an outfit co-founded by Double Impact producer Moshe Diamant, where it was most commonly known as Enter the New Dragon and slated to get underway in 1993.

A planned publicity stunt would have seen Van Damme fly above the French city in a Quest-branded hot air balloon, mirroring his exploits in the then-current script, but it had to be called off due to bad weather.

[15][16] The Quest was scheduled to begin filming at the end of 1993 for a Christmas 1994 release, but it was delayed and Sudden Death, another Quintano script that had peaked Van Damme's interest, was made first.

[10][19][20] According to Lettich, he was invited to co-direct the film with Van Damme, but turned it down to quash false assumptions that the Belgian had ghost-directed their previous collaborations, and because he did not want to work with producer Moshe Diamant.

[3] In 1991, Van Damme described the film as taking place circa 1930, with China's Shaolin Temples and Forbidden City as marquee locations, and another part set in Tibet.

Paris or Prague would be a major shooting location, although the pirate abduction was present and the remainder of the film would take place in Tibet and China, with the Forbidden City again mentioned as a possible backdrop.

However, it was quoted as taking place in 1902, and Van Damme expressed interest in making his character a boxer from Marseille, bearing some similarities with the premise of 1998's Legionnaire.

[33] Frequent Van Damme associate Peter Malota contributed to the fight choreography and played a Spanish fighter, although he wore an Albanian Eagle on his belt as a tribute to his real-life origins.

[35] French–Algerian Azedine Nouri was also a minor celebrity for his breaking, and was invited to be part of the film after appearing at a Paris-Bercy martial arts festival attended by Van Damme.

[39][40] As related by Moore in his autobiography, the shoot was poorly organized, and Diamant tried to get the crew to work extra hours without pay to compensate for the delays, many of which, according to actor Jack McGee, were due to Van Damme showing up late on set.

[42] Van Damme wanted to end the final fight with his signature spin kick, but Lambert suggested that he surprise his fans with a punch combination instead.

It was billed as a "world television premiere" and aired opposite a rerun of Van Damme's previous vehicle Sudden Death on the USA Network.

[60] Patrick McGavin of the Chicago Tribune wrote that The Quest "doesn't lack for ambition" but "Van Damme's staging of the fight scenes is less skillful, with a monotony that inevitably flattens the material".

[61] Janet Maslin of the New York Times was also unimpressed by Van Damme's direction, writing that "[t]he one-on-one bouts have the punch-drunk symmetry of a video game".

[13] Emanuel Levy of Variety acknowledged that the film felt "like a personal movie for Van Damme" and that it was "not badly directed or executed", but found it "a self-consciously old-fashioned swashbuckling adventure" and "an insipidly innocuous yarn".

[62] Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle gave a middling opinion, finding that "The Quest is at its best in its first half", which reminded him of "a Warner Bros. picture from the early '30s."

"[63] Longtime Van Damme supporter Kevin Thomas of the Los Angeles Times was most enthusiastic, calling the film "a socko directorial debut" and "a martial arts adventure odyssey that's epic in scale and high in style."

[65] While The Quest was publicized as a different work than Enter the New Dragon, Frank Dux considered that the finished film was a thinly disguised rework of the screenplay he had co-written for the former.

[68] Dux's complaint alleged that he had an agreement with Van Damme for his work on Enter the New Dragon, which included a flat fee of $100,000 and 2.5% of the film's gross.

[69][70] According to Dux, Van Damme recommended he sign a contract with a subsidiary of Moshe Diamant's Epic Productions to receive payment for his work on Enter The New Dragon.

[21][69] Dux testified that he had both a written note and an audio tape of Van Damme's royalty promise, but was unable to retrieve them due to extensive damages sustained by his apartment during the 1994 Northridge earthquake.

[73] Van Damme's counsels scored a critical blow when they summoned witnesses who contradicted Dux's claims that his residence had been rendered inaccessible by the earthquake.

[3] The case formed the basis for "Hollywood Betrayal", an episode of the documentary series Crime Stories hosted by Richard Belzer, which premiered on Court TV on May 28, 1999.