Hei Tiki, also known as Primitive Passions and Hei Tiki: A Saga of the Maoris, is a 1935 American mock-documentary film made in New Zealand by the eccentric Alexander Markey and released (with sound added) in America. The film gained notoriety in America for having scenes of nudity cut in various states. It is one of four films (with The Devil's Pit, Down on the Farm, and On the Friendly Road) which claim to be the first "New Zealand talkie", although the claim is dubious in this case as the sound was added in America.
American-born Anna Vorontosov teaches school in a remote, primitive section of northern New Zealand. Her experimental teaching methods have won her the love and affection of her pupils and their parents and the admiration of the unhappily married school inspector, Abercrombie.
Logan, an ex-gang leader, has left the gang life to raise his daughter Tori. But when Tori is murdered by an opposing gang in town, Logan must choose forgiveness or revenge.
Five years have passed and Jake has turned his back on his family. He's still up to his usual tricks in McClutchy's Bar, unaware, as he downs his latest opponent, that his eldest son, Nig, has died in a gang fight.
When an arranged marriage brings Ada and her spirited daughter to the wilderness of nineteenth-century New Zealand, she finds herself locked in a battle of wills with both her controlling husband and a rugged frontiersman to whom she develops a forbidden attraction.
This impressive doco disperses the fog of shame and sensationalism to shed light on the tragedy that made international headlines in 2007 when a young Wainuiomata woman died during a mākutu lifting.
Eight Māori female directors have each contributed a sequence to this powerful and challenging feature which unfolds around the tangi of a small boy who died at the hands of his caregiver.
Boy, an 11-year-old child and devout Michael Jackson fan who lives on the east coast of New Zealand in 1984, gets a chance to know his absentee criminal father, who has returned to find a bag of money he buried years ago.
Munro, a soldier turned lay preacher, comes to New Zealand to minister to the first British colonists, but he is converted by the powerful chief Maianui to serve a different purpose.
Adalbert "Mussu" Koikkalainen inherits 9,000 marks from his uncle. To buy a milk shop, Koikkalainen needs another thousand marks and work experience, so he applies for a job at the department store Sampo, where he is hired as a scapegoat to receive customer complaints.
A Japanese comedy from the end of the silent era (it has music) from a popular series. A feud, a practical joke and romance are the set up for some great comedy and drama from a team of distinctive appearance who are exploiting their silent cinema styles to the full.
Cheyenne joins El Diablo's gang looking for his long time missing wife and daughter. After saving Romero from the gang he returns to get Connie who he now realizes is his daughter.
The Aldwych Theater farceurs are at it again in Fighting Stock. The punning title refers to a well-stocked rural fishing stream, which sparks a battle royale between two rival groups of fishermen.
The Keystone Hotel hosts a very prestigious beauty contest. When the cross-eyed judge presents the first prize to an elderly cleaning woman, angry members of the audience respond by hurling custard pies.
Evelyn Vail (Florence Rice) is a nurse convicted of poisoning a patient. Out on parole, Evelyn decides to fly to Sing-Sing and confront death row inmate who accused her of the deed in the first place.
Comments
Have you watched Hei Tiki yet? What did you think about it?
