E Tipu E Rea - Thunderbox

Watched this at college in the early 90's & hadn't re-watched since but what a classic Tamahori short film! Lead character is of full Samoan descent (Faifua Amiga jr.) but plays the Maori character well :) :)

Jesus, Faifua Amiga cracks me the f**k up in this episode. The court scene always gets me lmao.

great series so far. wish it would've had subtitles for the maori conversations though. it's a shame this isn't available on dvd. i've been binge watching a lot of nz films lately and come across so many films that i hadn't even heard of. to see so many great films, and series like this, and not having any kind of easy access to watch it is a bit annoying. i contacted sky tv about considering putting up an NZ movie channel dedicated to nz movies and tv series but they said they have no plans as of yet.

how are we suppose to carry on the legacy of great NZ film making (this was the first tv production to use maori personnel, right?) if NZ is making it hard to get access to these films? movies like kingpin, kingi's story, mark 2, utu, ngati, broken english, her majesty, fracture, no. 2, rain of the children, and many more, are so hard to find. there needs to be a solution.

other than that, i enjoyed this episode. i wish Faifua Amiga did more films. in everything i've seen him in so far, i've greatly enjoyed his presence.

I was a very small part in the cast and was overawed by the awesome talent on this short film, both in terms of cast and crew
Not sure where to buy it but it was amazing
Sandy

Can I order Thunderbox somewhere???

Lorna

I remember this film (the whole series actually) as being the best working experience I've had, as a crew member, than any other production.

Many of the crew were trainees (interns from He Taonga i Tawhiti film training) and even though we lacked the grounding of seasoned technicians, we made up for it with passion and a sense of togetherness.

I guess you could say we all shared the same vision and worked with pride to be producing NZ's first Maori television series, crewed predominantly by Maori.

If you asked the janitor at NASA, back in the '60's what his vision was, he would've replied "getting to the moon". So in remembrance of the great Don Selwyn who managed to Train, Employ, Produce, Manage and Nurture a generation of Maori film makers... a huge thumbs up to you... I believe you changed the history of NZ film making for the better.