Rating: 
Summary: Superb acting and a point well made
Review: It isn't hard to see why this movie garnered so many kudos after its release. The acting is superb. (Note: Temeura Morrison later stated that he was "scarred" for quite a while emotionally and mentally after playing Jake.) The unexcelled acting in AND the directing of this film, in this viewer's opinion, show the exact nature of family violence more clearly than other presentation in any media ever has. At first I was unwilling to see another film dealing with the subject, especially since I the results of domestic violence almost daily on my job. Now I say that if you watch only one film on the matter in your life, make it this one. For an American viewer, the fact that all the action takes place in Auckland, New Zealand helps give the distance needed for an honest perspective on the theme. Then the highly skilled actors (may we see more of all of them!)play the story out as it happens to thousands of families all over the world, totally stripping domestic violence of any excuse to be. By the heart-rending and horrific end of the movie there can be no doubt in anyone's mind that neither substance abuse, cultural conditioning, disenfranchised cultures, poverty nor a host of other things often invoked as "reasons" justify turning one's household into a war zone. Most family violence perpetrators are not hardcore psychopaths; they are "Jakes", and they have no excuse for what they do to their families. A beautiful film that makes its point without resulting to melodrama and sensationalism. It's a credit to all involved with the production that we look in on the lives of one family in crisis and realize, knowing that this scene is repeated thousands of time daily worldwide, the ultimate devastation brought about by "routine" family violence. A brilliant presentation. A "must see."
Rating:
Summary: Thank you to the cast and Lee Tamahori
Review: Anyone who has been affected by the cancer of domestic abuse can relate, and find strength in this tragically beautiful film. Once Were Warriors will come too close to home for many.
The stories center is Beth Heke(Rena Owen) a Moari matriarch, who is struggling to tend to her volatile family. Rena Owen, and especially Temuera Morrison were criminally overlooked in international acclaim for their career defining performances. Temuera Morrison's performance to this day strikes me to the core of my being as a character that I have known, fear, pity, and can relate to on many different levels. The family's situation is volatile for the following reasons.
1. The extreme levels of poverty and unemployment, and the social ills that accompany them. The plight of the Moari people was compared once to the plight of Native Americans living on land reservations here in America, by a friend and resident of New Zealand.
2. Her children Grace(Mamaengaroa Kerr-Bell), Nig(Julian arahanga), Boogie(Taungaroa Emile), and two youngest are all succumbing to their environment in dramatically different avenues. Grace is the artistically inclined sensitive protector of her under 5 year old brother and sister. Grace shields the little ones from the horror of life, at the cost of her own passions and talents. Nig is approaching adulthood, and is heavily involved with urban street gangs. Boogie is the teenager who is regularly in trouble with the police, and is looking at institutionalization.
3. Jake Heke(Temuera Morrison) a.k.a Jake the Muss a.k.a. Beths husband and the childrens father. Jake and his "friends" are the end product of the social machine that the children are dangerously close to entering. Jake is regularly unemployed, constantly drinking with his friends, and always ready to answer any situation with rage and or fists. Jakes regular target is Beth.
What this film is truly about(without spoiling the film) is rediscovering the pride that exists within a people. Once Were Warriors transends all ethnic barriers in this respect( but does an outstanding job of shedding light on the little known Moari people). Pride and history is present in all peoples. To find solutions to the present, you have to examine the past. Do not search for villains in this film. Even in the monsterous Jake, one can still see the young boy that lost faith in his people, his family, and himself a long time ago. A brutal, honest, soul ravaging film, this should be required viewing for any family
Rating:
Summary: A Must See
Review: I've seen this movie a couple of times and everytime it leaves me with the same reaction....impressed with the acting and shocked from seeing such sadness. Without writing a long paragragh about the storyline which you'll be reading in other reviews I'll just say that this movie covers many subjects. It shows poverty in its most vivid reality. It has abuse, rape, gangs, crime, suicide, hate, disrespect, dysfunctional parenting etc. It also shows love, pride and a respect for tradition and history of their people and ancestors. The problems of the Heke family are vast. You don't have to live in New Zealand to experience them. I live in the U.S.A and poverty and all it's baggage are living here as well. Also, in other countries I am certain. I applaud all the talented actors in this movie. They had my emotions all tangled up. That is how I know that I had just seen brilliant acting. Unlike many abused wives who stay with abusive husbands, I was happy to see that Beth Heke finally walked away. It was sad that her awakening happened to late. It cost her a child. I have seen only one other movie that left me with the same feelings as I felt with this movie and it was a titled "American History X". It is also a must see!
Rating: 
Summary: New Zealand--Sociology of the Family
Review: This movie is powerful. It is about a New Zealand family on the brink of a spiritual collapse, spiritual collision course, at a brink of hitting next to the next layer to the bottom.
It is powerful and gripping. The movie depicts a New Zealand family, what appears to be, struggling to conform and reject the larger society and how they are on the brink of emotional collapse.
This movie made me view another side of what it means to be of the Maori people, tribe, culture in modern society. It is also about how this family lives, like many in the United States and other countries, in the cylcle of poverty. How alienation can also introduce and increase self destructive ways: alcoholism, wife beating, violence, neglect of children, neglect of self, self rejection..........
Worth the view,
Diego........
Rating:
Summary: feel the power of this movie
Review: I'm from the country this movie was made, New Zealand, and I've got to say, this movie changed the way I viewed New Zealand and is changing me in a way. I can relate to a lot of things to the people in this movie as my pops use to beat on my moms a lot when I was younger. To me, this is one of the best movies I've ever seen and witnessed. The power in this movie is so mighty, you wouldn't even believe it.
It's not about any Maori family but families world-wide living in the struggle. I, at one point, was in that position and that's one of the reasons why I'm so in love with this movie. I can understand the pain and anger these kids had to go through as I was in the exact same position. Temuera Morrison isn't the character that you'd expect to be played Jake. But the amount of energy and effort he puts into this tells everyone that anyone can do it. His role at Jake 'The Muss' is one of the best I've seen. He puts so much energy into this character that it makes people hate on the character himself.
For those who don't know the story, this is about a woman's fight for survival. Rena Owen, playing Beth Heke, is absolutely great. Beth is married to Jake 'The Muss', a ruthless fighter who has nothing to lose. Even though she gets the beats from Jake and doesn't get any support whatsoever, her love for her still stands strong. Surviving with a monster like Jake for 18 years is what I call 'guts'. This woman is hard, even harder than Jake himself. Hardly any woman would survive with a husband beating on her or cursing her most nights. Beth was different, she had a special power in her that would put her up with this. But not only her was she living through the pain, the kids too. With 5 kids, Grace and Boogie felt the most pain as they were growing up. When Beth finally realizes what is happening in life, she finally takes the right lane and cruises down it.
Lee Tamahori, who also directed the latest James Bond movie, is superb. I don't know how he did it but he did and it turned out to be a classic. The acting is far beyond superb, I wouldn't even know how to rate the acting as there's no word to describe it. It touches deep in the heart to anyone and makes everyone think hard deep into life.
As I've said before, it's changed the way about how I view New Zealand. I use to hate living in this country but now, I'm proud that I was born here and I'm proud that I was raised here. I thought New Zealand wasn't jacksh*t without the major producing companies but now I can finally see that any country can do it, no matter how well known they are.
This movie is honestly one of the best I've seen, I can honestly say this is the most powerful movie I've seen (well, for me as I've witnessed mostly everything in this movie) but I'd have to recommend it to anyone. It contains a lot of violence in this but its for a reason.
Rating:
Summary: Incredible acting, gritty and violent story from NZ
Review: Temuera Morrison and Rena Owen head up a miraculously talented cast in "Once Were Warriors." The story is about a family in dire need, a family of Maori New Zealanders living in public housing and in poverty.
Jake, played by Morrison, is a violent drunk. He is the husband of Beth, who left her village to marry him, much to the disapproval of her family. Her children watch as she's brutalized, and ultimately, they pay the price for their mother's denial. It's a very realistic portrayal of the entrapment of battered women. Though it looks as if all might be lost, there is hope at the end.
This is a low-budget production, but the acting is absolutely flawless. What's totally amazing to me, is that Morrison was the ineffectual and somewhat soft son in "Whale Riders", yet here he is cast as a sort of Jake LaMotta; fearsome, all his emotions coming out as violence and frustration with little redeeming virtue to be found. The contrast is so great that the casting was controversial in the extreme. But Morrison is absolutely SCARY in this role. You can feel the white heat of his nastiness. This film, for all its simplicity in a story of a poor family with problems, is one that stays with you vividly--at least it did for me. Recommended.
Rating:
Summary: A Truly Great Film!
Review: "Once Were Warriors" is a unique and marvelous film. Gritty, scary but thoroughly believable.
The film is set in the tough suburbs of south Auckland amidst a sea of social dysfunction. Yet in this sea, there are some individuals who shine however briefly. There are others who simply flounder.
There are magnificent performances by Rena Owen who plays the role of Beth Heke and Temeura Morrison who plays her brutal husband Jake "the Muss" Heke. These two actors are great! See the film if only to see the characters that they have created.
When seeing this film, do not expect to be uplifted. It is bleak and often terrifying. It is also very realistic. Social dysfunction is rarely pleasant. This film is not the dross of Hollywood but a real world with real people and real problems.
If you see no other film this year, see "Once Were Warriors".
Rating:
Summary: The Maori urban life that New Zealand tourists never see.
Review: In a film so hard-hitting that the viewer actually feels battered by the time it reaches its conclusion, a Maori family with five children must deal with urban violence, poverty, drugs, alcoholism, unemployment, gang warfare, rape, physical and mental abuse, suicide, and a host of other horrific family problems, all shown graphically. Beth and Jake Heke and their five children, along with numerous other Maori families, live in an urban ghetto of government-supported housing, isolated from the rest of society and isolated, too, from their old rural culture, which once gave pride and a sense of identity to Maori families. Here in the city the prevailing "culture" centers around bars, rather than the ancient meeting houses.
Beth Heke (Rena Owen), the mother, loves her violent husband Jake (Temuera Morrison), despite his abuse of her when he is drunk, and she cares deeply about her children, but she is powerless to protect them or herself from Jake's rages. The oldest son (Julian Arahanga) is part of a street gang which covers their faces in traditional tattoos and uses their own violence for protection against others. Their sensitive second son Boogie (Taungaroa Emile) has been arrested for associating with car thieves. Most touching, however, is Gracie (unforgettably played by Mamaengaroa Kerr-Bell), a thirteen-year-old beauty who is trying to lead a good life without any good examples to follow. Pathetically, she and the two youngest children are forced to "grow up early," accepting the horrors of their lives as "normal," while they try to survive any way they can.
The bold, raw language of Alan Duff's novel of the same name becomes part of Riwia Brown's script, and Lee Tamahori's direction brings this powerful, absorbing, and overwhelming story of human misery to life. Tamahori uses contrasts throughout to emphasize the themes and the differences between contemporary Maori urban life and traditional Maori culture. He uses haunting Maori music to begin the film, then switches to scenes of rap and rock, he alternates quiet visions of a Maori village with loud bar activity, he shows the sweetness of Gracie against the grim living conditions of her best friend Toot (Shannon Williams), and illustrates throughout Jake's violence in contrast to the family's need for calmer, more focused lives. The cinematography, too, emphasizes the contrasts, though most viewers will be too focused on the overwhelming emotionalism of the scenes to notice. Though I loved the book, I found the film even better--the characters as acted here are much more heart-wrenching than I ever could have imagined. Mary Whipple
Rating:
Summary: Just sucks you in...
Review: ONCE WERE WARRIORS is one of the most powerful films I have ever seen. Released at a time when NZ films weren't widely accepted, yet when audiences saw it ... they changed their minds. This was the most talked about film in Australia in 1994. It's one of those rare movies that made me cry.Incredible performances from both male and female leads which contribute to the powerfulness of this film. The sequel from 1998 called "What Becomes of the Broken Hearted" is worth seeing, but not a patch on ONCE WERE WARRIORS. Buy it, rent it, or whatever ... just get yourself a copy. You must have this DVD in your collection.
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