caipirina

Just watched it today here in Fiji ... and while it is sure one of the way better movies this year I have seen ... I cannot really see myself sit through that one again ... but then again, I guess I have become shallow with age

BUT ... i think movies like this are the best way to introduce a different culture to people ... If i had seen that when I was 15 I would have gone crazy to now find out everything there is about the Maori culture .. more than school could have ever make me to read about it ..

Great movie, thumbs up .. and yes, the girl was great

Frank TJ Mackey

I guess I was expecting to see more whales....so I was
disappointed by the movie.

It just didn't do it for me.

But with all these people saying how amazing they think it
is, I wouldn't discourage people from seeing it.

I will probably rent it to give it a second look.

Pants

I was indifferent. Some of the perfomances were excellent and the scenery was great (even if the photography was poor), but this film follows too closely the structure of Dryer's film Ordet. It had the big score and I cried at all the emotional moments, but I found myself quickly forgeting the film afterward.

Rating: Two Stars
Rewatch Factor: None

Daytripper

To anyone who enjoyed the performance of the little girl in "Whale Rider", I beg you to rent the movie "Ponette". It's filled with the best performances by children I've ever seen. The lead won the French Academy for Best Actress at the age of FOUR!!!

lembas

worst movie I've seen this year.

badger1997

I liked it, i just wasn't as carried away as some people seem to have been. I went in knowing nothing about the movie and while I enjoyed some of the performances and thought it had some good parts, it just didn't click entirely for me.

Now, by no means am I bashing this movie. I enjoyed it and it was worth the $4.50 I spent on a matinee showing, but it just didn't come across as anything special for me.

Pauly

I'm just wondering what other people thought of this much talked about movie. Personally, I'm not exactly sure what I thought of it. Personally I feel that I might have appreciateed it more if I knew a bit more about the Maori culture that the movie was about. The little girl in it was quite excellent, I will admit. Any other opinions on this?

Chris Camfield

A wonderful film. I admit to not having seen many films this year, but Whale Rider was the best.

I have read some Maori myths - years ago - but I didn't really feel that it helped me. The plot structure is a very fundamental one of the rejected child claiming her destiny.

Brain_F15ting

Just saw a gorgeous movie, Whale Rider so serene and lovely.. Based in the lovely surroundings of new Zealand the story charts the emotional struggle of tradition and change, though most of this was very amateurishly portrayed, it does reach to some levels of “aww” the emotional empathy is one think the director wants us to have for Pai the 12 year old lead, she does a fantastic job in conveying emotions and weight of her feelings. The acting here is superb, very well done, let down by a somewhat iffy story and script.

Then again, I am not sure if the story was aiming to reach the heights of dialogue and atmosphere that I would have liked from it. It isn’t even much of cogent story, its exportation of emotion is it’s key. It does not make sense in that you feel frustrated at her granddad Koro for not accepting her etc, but you see Pai accepting the tradition, and blaming nature rather than him.

This endearing attitude is something that draws you into the story. The eventuality of things makes everything glue, again it doesn’t feel complete in the sense of it coming together in a traditional sense, it is a cathartic release of emotion when Pai disappears into the water it is heart wrenching. Though parts of my mind were still ringing “Hello !!!, why why?” this near toward the end of the film gave me the thriller aspect as it arose my anxiety in her survival. The end of the film is a compendium of what Koro wanted and what Pai bought. It was fantastic, the feel good factor smashed the bulb.

Accompanied by some superb sounds this film is a definite Its hard to judge the cinematography, as it’s setting is so spectacular anyway. There are some really touching moments which have been dealt with nicely. I conclude this film to be a must watch if your feeling a bit cold and bored, watch it for what it is, and not what you want it to be. The DVD is available on play.com I bought it from amazon.com with some other stuff, on the spur of a hunch and an old guardian review. Well worth it

PS: wrote this review elsewhere, my feelings havent changed

Ian11

The movie is going to be slow going for a lot of people. I know a lot of people who wouldn't have the patience to sit through it. But the ending is just glorious and makes all the things that happened before worthwhile. The characters and the relationship have to be firmly established and I'm glad the filmakers took their time to develop them. I kinda wanted the movie to end before it really ended. It would have given the movie a more mythic quality but I actually felt elation when it ended that way. If the movie doesn't get to you you've got a heart of stone.

Ky-Fi

Although it's a different setting, the movie reminded me a lot of another of my favorites, The Secret of Roan Inish. To me there is probably nothing more painful to sit through than a bad performance from an annoying child actor, but when the child actor is really good, like in this one, it can make a movie pretty amazing. I really like the subtelty of the "magical realism" style, too, which both these movies worked in to some degree.

Inverse

This is a great flick, one of those rare movies I would recommend to practically everyone. Apparently a lot of other people think so too ... Even though not many people saw it in theatres, it's managed to climb onto the IMDB Top 250 after its DVD release (it's currently ranked #217).

theneobez

I loved it, definitely a flick worthy of its praise.

chente

Great film. I really enjoyed it.

Pants

As I said before I didn't like the film and felt it was old-hat and predictable. It's a retread of Reyer's Ordet (and like 50 melodramatic weepies that came after) in a new location...woop-de-do.

I think critics give movies like this one a pass because its foriegn locations, people, and culture fool critics into thinking the film is unique. I'd rather see a film that takes place in a really boring and antiseptic American location but did something that's original or truely unique, then see a film like this that plugs age old stories and movie of the week melodrama into a time and place we've never seen before and claims itself as unique.

Inverse

Yeah, cuz you know themes like tradition vs. change, success and failure, tension within a family, community vs. individualism, and faith vs. skepticism are *so* passe and played out.

P.S.: I believe you mean Dryer.

Pants

Frankly yes. If I'm going to spend $10 I'd rather attend a re-release of a film that approached the material flawlessly than a flawed film that covers old ground.

And yes Carl Th. Dryer. Sorry about the typo

Seeker

Personally, I thought the film was "precious". The child actor did a MARVELOUS job, and the film grew on me as it went along.

I didn't like the ambiguous - I would have preferred that to have been more definitive.

But overall, I thought it was a very worthwhile film - I've been renting a lot of DVDs lately, and after seeing that one, I went to buy it.

kilcher

Wow, my thoughts exactly!

HistoryProf

Personally? I loved every second of it...easily my favorite film of the year thusfar.....

LiquidSky

Cinematography and performance by the young actress: ****/****

Film: */****

DVD Smurf

I liked the film a lot...9/10...yet it is not the best film I have seen this year...

Big Quasimodo

Agree with much of the positives here...acting was the best aspect - girl and grandfather were exceptional. Location shots were beautiful.

It did not live up to the expectations I had for it. Word of mouth and cinematic reviews had this thing hyped as a great movie..one of the best of the year. I thought it was a nice film with excellent acting. Maybe a low budget, non-Hollywood film for the whole family is so rare that people felt the need to overhype it...

HistoryProf

I just thought i should add for our cool new member that there is a search function available on every thread screen towards the top-right...if he had used it, he would have found the answer to his question....

http://www.dvdtalk.com/forum/showthr...ht=whale+rider

http://www.dvdtalk.com/forum/showthr...ht=whale+rider

http://www.dvdtalk.com/forum/showthr...ht=whale+rider

http://www.dvdtalk.com/forum/showthr...ht=whale+rider

kcbrett5

Extremely slow moving. I was disappointed. It was held in such high regard by every critic that I expected it to be good. I actually fell asleep during it and had to back up 2 or 3 scenes when I woke up to rewatch what I missed.