Once Were Warriors (film)
| Once Were Warriors | |
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Theatrical release poster
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| Directed by | Lee Tamahori |
| Produced by | Robin Scholes |
| Written by | Riwia Brown |
| Based on | Once Were Warriors by Alan Duff |
| Starring |
Rena Owen Temuera Morrison Cliff Curtis Julian Arahanga Mamaengaroa Kerr-Bell |
| Music by | Murray Grindlay Murray McNabb |
| Cinematography | Stuart Dryburgh |
| Edited by | Michael J. Horton |
| Distributed by | Fine Line Features |
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Release date
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Running time
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102 minutes |
| Country | New Zealand |
| Language | English Maori |
| Box office | $1.6 million |
Once Were Warriors is a 1994 New Zealand drama film based on New Zealand author Alan Duff's bestselling 1990 first novel. The film tells the story of the Hekes, an urban Māori family, and their problems with poverty, alcoholism, and domestic violence, mostly brought on by the patriarch Jake. The film was directed by Lee Tamahori and stars Rena Owen, Temuera Morrison and Cliff Curtis.
Beth left her small town and, despite her parents' disapproval, married Jake "the Muss" Heke. After 18 years they live in an unkempt state house in an unnamed New Zealand city and have five children. Their interpretations of life and being Māori are tested. Their eldest daughter, Grace, keeps a journal in which she chronicles events as well as stories she tells her younger siblings.
Jake is fired from his job and is satisfied with receiving unemployment benefit, spending most days getting drunk at the local pub with his friends, singing songs, and savagely beating any patron he considers to have stepped out of line. He often invites crowds of friends from the bar to his home for drunken parties. When his wife "gets lippy" at one of his parties, he brutally attacks her in front of their friends. Beth turns to drink when things go wrong, and has angry outbursts and occasional violence of her own, on a much smaller scale. Her children fend for themselves, resignedly cleaning the blood-streaked house after their father has beat their mother.
Nig, the Hekes' eldest son, moves out to join a gang whose rituals include getting facial tattoos (in Māori culture called tā moko). He is subjected to an initiation beating by the gang members but is then embraced as a new brother, and he later sports the gang's tattoos. Nig cares about his siblings but despises his father. He is angered when his mother is beaten but deals with it by walking away.
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Wikipedia