Wi Kuki Kaa Movies
- 2001
A couple looking for adventure and romance get a lot more than they bargained for in this made-for-TV drama based on a novel by Louis L'Amour. It's 1955, and John and Helen Lacklan (Keith Carradine and Paris Jefferson) are two scientists who've been working for the United States government as part of the nuclear weapons development program. They're also man and wife, and when John wed Helen, he gave her a ring without a stone, promising to someday find the diamond that she deserved. Needing a vacation, the Lacklans travel to Borneo, hoping to find a diamond while getting away from it all. Needing a guide, the Lacklans hire Mike Kardec (Billy Zane), an American expatriate who knows the jungles of Borneo and has done some diamond hunting himself. Mike soon finds he's strongly attracted to Helen, and Helen is equally drawn to Mike; it doesn't take long for John to see what's happening, and he angrily fires Kardec, hiring instead a native boy who claims to know where diamonds can be found. However, what John doesn't know is, the boy is a member of the Dyak tribe, whose leader Jeru (Piripi Waretini) has been responsible for the disappearance of a number of visitors; when Mike gets word of this, he sets out to find the Lacklans before it's too late. The Diamond of Jeru also stars Jackson Raine and Peter Carroll. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
- Starring:
- Billy Zane, Paris Jefferson, (more)
- 1987
Norman Fletcher plays an New Zealand medical-school graduate of the 1940s, who, at the request of his father, pays a visit to his home town. Fletcher has a particular affinity for the local Maori population--and small wonder, since his late mother was Maori (a fact hitherto unkown to him). After a young villager dies of leukemia, Fletcher decides to forego the posh practice that had been planned for him to remain with his new-found friends. Ngati is notable as the first film to be written and directed by Maoris. Despite a few technical and performing crudities, the results are well up to the high standards of other New Zealand-based productions of the era. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Wi Kuki Kaa, Judy McIntosh, (more)
- 1985
In this undistinguished coming-of-age drama, Riki Nathan (Mitchell Manuel) has been sent to a boys' reform school and has to handle the vagaries of good and bad inmates as best he can. The young teens, mostly Maoris, only want to get out of there any way they can and go home, especially Willie (Junior Amigo) who has some unfortunate run-ins with the resident bully Karl (Nicholas Rogers). Riki resists getting into a scrape with Karl until Willie's misfortunes at Karl's hand make the showdown inevitable.
~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi
~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi
- 1983
Utu is the Maori word for "Retribution," which sums up the chief motivating factor of this New Zealand-produced drama. Set in the 1870s, the film details the exigencies of British Colonial rule. A Maori scout, Te Wheke (Anzac Wallace), stumbles across a native village that has been destroyed in a British raid. Since it is the scout's own village, he deserts the British army, the better to seek "utu." Leading a vigilante force consisting of his fellow Maoris, Te Wheke kills as many British settlers as he can get his hands on. The feverish conviction of his crusade is in stark contrast to the attitudes of the British, who seem more concerned with material possessions than with human beings. Popular down under star Bruno Lawrence is cast as a vengeance-driven settler who makes it his personal mission in life to end Te Wheke's reign of terror. The most expensive New Zealand-filmed project to date, Utu was an enormous success upon its first domestic release; the American version runs some 15 minutes shorter than the original. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Anzac Wallace, Bruno Lawrence, (more)
This fourth film dramatization of the 1789 mutiny aboard the H.M.S. Bounty is based not on the familiar Nordhoff and Hall book, but on Richard Hough's novel Captain Bligh and Mr. Christian. This time, the infamous Captain Bligh (Anthony Hopkins) is as strict a disciplinarian as ever. He is, however, no monster; faced with his crew's increasing laxity after an idyllic visit to Tahiti (the search for breadfruit takes second place to limitless sex with the island girls), Bligh is forced to resort to flogging and other such means to keep his men in line. Mr. Christian (Mel Gibson), formerly Bligh's friend, is of little use to the captain, having fallen in love with a native girl himself. Christian becomes the leader of the mutiny virtually in spite of himself; and when the mutineers try to seek refuge on Tahiti, they find that the local chief wants no part of them, which is why they settle for the nearly uninhabitable Pitcairn. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Mel Gibson, Anthony Hopkins, (more)
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