UTU REDUX

I was delighted to read in this morning's Dominion Post that the brilliant film UTU has been remastered, and will be re-issued as UTU REDUX.

Zac Wallace as Te Wheke in Utu

Veteran director Geoff Murphy is hoping to get some revenge on film critics when a remastered version of his classic 1983 movie Utu premieres in Wellington.

New Zealand critics savaged the film at the time, but Wellington director Gaylene Preston hails it as a "visonary" piece of work.

Murphy says Utu: Redux will be shown to a "completely different country", unmarred by the confrontational nature of Maori and Pakeha relations in the 1980s.

The film reaped international kudos at the time - becoming the first New Zealand film to be accepted into the Cannes Film Festival - but audiences at home were less embracing.
A new cut of the historical epic will premiere as part of the International Film Festival in Wellington and Auckland next month.

Along with Sir Peter Jackson's production studio Park Road Post, Murphy and photography director Graeme Cowley have spent three years and $250,000 digitalising and remastering Utu.

If you get the chance, go and see it.  One of the most moving and thought-provoking films I have ever seen.