Average Rating: 7.7/10
Reviews Counted: 32
Fresh: 30 | Rotten: 2
No consensus yet.
Average Rating: 7.5/10
Critic Reviews: 9
Fresh: 8 | Rotten: 1
No consensus yet.
liked it
Average Rating: 4.1/5
User Ratings: 28,334
This powerful drama was a major hit in its native New Zealand, outgrossing Jurassic Park in Kiwi cinemas. Jake and Beth Heke (Temurea Morrison and Rena Owen) are a couple of Maori descent who are living in a slum in Aukland. While it's obvious that they still love each other, Jake's alcoholism has driven a wedge into their relationship and has left their children emotionally scarred. Jake is charming while sober, but when drunk, he's a violent psychopath given to blink-of-an-eye mood changes and
Sep 2, 2003
All Critics (36) | Top Critics (12) | Fresh (33) | Rotten (2) | DVD (15)
A gut-grabber from New Zealand ... that stays with you for days.
As often happens when films are intent on getting a message across, Once Were Warriors can't stop itself from overdoing things.
Works, to some degree, on three levels: the visceral, the emotional, and the intellectual, and it is the amalgamation of these that makes this a memorable film.
Yet familiar as the pattern is ... the film holds because of the acting and because it functions as travelogue.
Reserve judgment until this raw, uncompromising working-class saga is over, and you might find yourself unforgettably moved -- and grateful for the experience.
It is powerful and chilling, and directed by Lee Tamahori with such narrative momentum that we are swept along in the enveloping tragedy of the family's life.
One of the most powerful, ultra-realistic dramas about domestic violence--As the battered wife, Rena Welson should have received a Best Actress nomination.
Overrated and nauseating.
It packs such a searing wallop of emotion that the viewer may be rendered incapable of speaking for several hours. It's that profoundly affecting.
Packed with bloody raw emotion.
The DVD, beside offering a pristine, widescreen transfer of the film, includes a commentary by Tamahori, a behind-the-scenes featurette and a tattoo photo gallery. . . .
I went for this one presuming it's a war movie. Little did I know that it was instead a social story of a family headed by a violent person. Anyway, as the credits started rolling in somewhat unusual way, I thought that this is gonna be some offbeat movie beyond my grasping abilities (somewhat is still left, honestly).
March 19, 2009Super Reviewer
True to the core... There is something in this movie that ever body can relate to, from rape to suicide, from drugs to alcohol and gangs to gangsters from Parents to children, from boyfriends to girlfriends, from crime to criminals and depression to optimism, from loyal words to broken promises, from love to revenge
August 26, 2007Super Reviewer
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