WHALE RIDER... Check this out

[bondish]

WHALE RIDER

http://www.whaleriderthemovie.com
http://us.imdb.com/Title?0298228

Synopsis: One young girl dared to confront the past, change the present and determine the future. On the east coast of New Zealand, the Whangara people - or Whangara iwi - believe their presence there dates back a thousand years or more to a single ancestor, Paikea, who escaped death when his canoe capsized by riding to shore on the back of a whale. From then on, Whangara chiefs - always the first-born, always male - have been considered Paikea's direct descendants. Pai, an 11-year-old girl in a patriarchal New Zealand tribe, believes she is destined to be the new chief. But her grandfather Koro is bound by tradition to pick a male leader. Pai loves Koro more than anyone in the world, but she must fight him and a thousand years of tradition to fulfill her destiny.

US Theatrical Release Date: June 6th, 2003 (NY/LA) - Expands to other cities at later dates
NZ Theatrical Release Date: January 30th, 2003

MPAA Rating TBA, NZ Rating Certicate: PG
Filmed in New Zealand/New Zealand Film
World Premiere: September 9th, 2002 (Toronto International Film Festival, Discovery category)
Awards/Nominations: Winner, People's Choice Award Toronto International Film Festival 2002, World Cinema Selection 2003 Sundance Film Festival, Official Section 2002 San Sebastian International Film Festival.
Running Time: 105 Mins
Directed by: Niki Caro
Screenwriter: Niki Caro
Cast: Keisha Castle-Hughes, Rawiri Paratene, Cliff Curtis.
Based Upon the novel, "The Whale Rider", by contemporary Maori author Witi Ihimaera.
Distributor: Newmarket Films/South Pacific Pictures/Pandora Film

TRAILER: (Quicktime @ Official Site)

Low Resolution Trailer 240x115 PX - 4.40 MB
Medium Resolution Trailer 320x153 PX - 6.78 MB
High Resolution Trailer 480x230 PX - 10.83 MB

Movie Poster:



More images available at official site (savable in HTML version) and at SouthPacificPictures.com

Currently rated 8.6/10 with 31 votes as of Jan 20th, 2003 on IMDB

[Movie Wizard]

<a href="http://www.whaleriderthemovie.com/trailer/trailer_high.mov">High Rez</a>

Vividly Cool!

[bondish]

All trailers updated in first post.

[TwoThumbzUp]

sounds interesting and I know it has been received well by audiences!

[bondish]

http://entertainment.nzoom.com/enter...29-132,00.html

REVIEW OF "WHALE RIDER" BY NZOOM

Cameron Officer reviews the highly anticipated film version of Witi Ihimaera's novel Whale Rider. Believe the hype - it's a stunning, brilliantly acted feature that conveys both universal themes and a familiar spirituality
Down at the front of the cavernous Sky City Theatre, five figures are lined up along a table. Seated before them, in tiered rows stretching up into the dark recesses of the enormous theatre, are the shuffling remains of an audience. Pockets of film buffs, industry hacks, journalists and proudly vocal supporters all patiently await the comments, asides and insider points of view from the five figures at the front of the room.

One of the figures, veteran film and television actor Rawiri Paratene, listens to a question from a member of the audience. The question is directed at the tiny figure to Paratene's left; the young actress Keisha Castle-Hughes.

"When are you off to Hollywood?" the audience member jokingly asks.

Paratene's shoulders go back. Before a nervously smiling Castle-Hughes can respond, this fiercely proud looking man, warm smile-lines creasing around his eyes, leans into the microphone in front of him.

"Doesn't Hollywood come to us now?" he retorts, grinning as a hefty wave of laughter envelopes the room.

Paratene seems very protective of Castle-Hughes. The way Paratene fends off the question on the young actress's behalf - like a father protecting his daughter from the stumbling advances of an adolescent boy - echoes director Niki Caro's soft spoken, but firm insistence that certain acting preparation is intensely personal and should be kept private, following an enquiry aimed at Castle-Hughes regarding a highly charged, deeply emotional sequence in the film.

The other members of the panel - South Pacific Pictures boss John Barnett and Whangara Kaumatua Hone Taumaunu - are silent following this. Caro's statement is left hanging in the air - a solemn reminder that the reason they are seated before the audience in the first place is a very spiritual one.

The five people at the front of the room are connected by two things. The first is a film; a beautifully rustic, warm, barren, emotional celluloid narrative called Whale Rider. The second is something a lot harder to describe. It's a bond generated from shared experience - a bond that was born out of months of filming in a rugged corner of New Zealand, along the east coast of the North Island, in a faded, quiet village called Whangara.

Whale Rider is based on the novel by Witi Ihimaera. It's a novel I've never read, but it's a movie I enjoyed immensely. Whale Rider is both wonderfully heartwarming and coolly remote. The story at its heart feels both as grand as some huge, epic tome, and as intimate as a half-whispered revelation between two lovers. By turns it is overflowing with comic simplicity and dramatic, spiritual subtext.

The film begins with the birth of baby Pai and her twin brother. There are complications and both her brother and mother die in the hospital. Pai's father Porourangi (Cliff Curtis) is inconsolable. Grief-stricken, he leaves his daughter in the care of her grandparents and, we eventually discover, abandons the community altogether.

Despite the tragedy of the situation, Pai's grandmother Flowers (Vicky Haughton) takes the small child into her family, while her ashen-faced husband Koro (Rawiri Paratene) looks on. Koro is the Chief of Whangara - a small village claiming descent from Paikea, the Whale Rider. In every generation, the village Chief is succeeded by a male heir. With the death of Pai's twin brother, Koro knows the line will be broken. Blinded by fierce senses of pride and tradition, he refuses to have anything to do with Pai, seeing her as a bad omen and of no use to him or his community.

12 years pass and Pai's father, now a renowned international artist, returns from his home in Germany. He finds, to his delight, that the gruff Koro has grown to love Pai. He is less happy to hear that Koro still expects his son to fulfill his destiny and take up his destined role as Chief of Whangara. Porourangi has no intention of doing so, having found a new life and a new future on the other side of the world.

There is an argument and Porourangi cuts his visit short. Saddened by her father's departure, Pai (Keisha Castle-Hughes) tries to show Koro that she should be the natural heir. Koro, darkly musing that the village has suffered nothing but misfortune since Pai's birth, scoffs at his mokopuna and refuses to entertain the idea. His contempt for her repeated flouting of sacred tradition sees her once again cast adrift emotionally from Koro.

The story is as prophetic as the Maori legend upon which it is based, but it is also a straightforward tale of searching for a sense of identity and love in the face of tradition. It's a universal story - one that could be told in any language, with any culture as its backbone. It's a good story, but in this particular instance it's the actors involved that make it a truly great story.

Paratene is fantastic as Koro. He alternates between conveying warm, honest love for his family and friends, and the stern, icy fury of a man struggling to remain true to his ancestors and destiny, in a world that increasingly appears intent on mocking such values. Always regarded as an actor with an intensely animated face, here Paratene's dark eyes exude both joviality and frustrated anger.

Like Paratene, Vicky Haughton brings a melancholic energy to Whale Rider . She effortlessly conveys an honest sense of humanity, which is often a difficult task for an adult actor in a film seen primarily through child's eyes. As the wry, long-suffering wife to Koro's intense seriousness, Flowers is a character to which we initially react with sympathy, but in actuality Flowers' character refuses pity. Before long she reveals herself to be strong and independent - more prone to fighting stubbornness with stubbornness. Haughton brings this delicate mix of tolerance, humour and dignity to the fore.

But it is the young newcomer Keisha Castle-Hughes that is the real scene-stealer here. She brings to the screen a natural curiosity and a fiery determination not seen in a young actress in this country before. Despite Whale Rider being her first feature film, Castle-Hughes acts like she's been in front of the camera all her life. Balancing tomboyish feistiness with undeniable feminine beauty, Castle-Hughes' work in Whale Rider may set her off on a successful career path, but for the meantime, it's her characterisation of the troubled Pai that is being talked about.

There is a clarity in her face that betrays her natural destiny. Try as she might, she cannot make Koro understand that she is the heir he so desperately searches for. The startling thing here is that the young actress convincingly conveys the frustration and sorrow of facing such a metaphorical brick wall. She manages to show both a firm understanding of the gravity of her situation, as well as an innocent hurtfulness - the scowling, sulky resolve becoming of a twelve-year old who feels she can do no right in the eyes of grown-ups.

Niki Caro's direction is simple, effective and credible. She douses the screen in hefty doses of radiant colours - showing the sun-bleached village off in superb detail. The wind buffets the tussock grass and the flaked paint of the marae roof reflects the sparkling waves offshore. Later, when the village's destiny is in question, Caro fills the screen with thunderous waves, cold blue-gray splashes that renders the locale unrecognisable from how it is presented in the first half of the film.

Likewise, Cliff Curtis plays a solid role as Porourangi, but it is not a role that benefits especially from Curtis' presence. Whether this is a localised case of stunt-casting or not, it's good - in a way that takes nothing away from Curtis' talents - to see him overshadowed by brilliant acting elsewhere in the cast. To acknowledge that he plays a minor role in the film against the efforts of both a brilliant character actor and a first-time thespian gives Whale Rider even greater depth.

Whale Rider has already garnered both international and local praise, people's choice awards and world cinema silverware from Toronto and the Sundance Festival. It's getting the grand treatment overseas, but it is a uniquely Kiwi film filled with universal themes.

It is lovingly, nostalgically filmed with a sense of rustic isolation and spiritual familiarity that sets it apart from anything else in cinema at present.

Cameron Officer

[guevara]

Very nice and very thx