Ashanti

Ashanti is a 1979 action adventure drama directed by Richard Fleischer. It follows Dr. David Linderby and his wife Anansa, both physicians working on a medical mission in Africa. When Anansa disappears, the local authorities show little interest in pursuing the case, and David learns she has been taken by Suleiman, a slave trader who intends to sell her. Refusing to accept official inaction, David sets out to find her before she is lost to a trafficking network that reaches across the Sahara toward the Red Sea. Malik, a man whose own family was taken by the same trader a year earlier, becomes his ally in the search.

The film stars Michael Caine as David and Beverly Johnson as Anansa, with Peter Ustinov as Suleiman, Kabir Bedi as Malik, Omar Sharif as Prince Hassan and Rex Harrison as Brian Walker. It was written by Stephen Geller and produced by Georges-Alain Vuille, and was shot largely in desert and coastal locations. Ashanti was Fleischer's twentieth film as director in chronological order, arriving between The Prince and the Pauper in 1977 and Amityville 3-D in 1983.

Released in February 1979 and running 118 minutes, the film drew modest audience scores of 5.4 on IMDb from around 2,300 votes and 5.8 on TMDB from a much smaller sample of 55, indicating a mixed response to the production.