Quentin Tarantino’s passion for films transcends all boundaries, including national borders. When asked about his favorite New Zealand film in 2019, he called the revenge drama Utu, which was forgotten after its premiere in 1983, as our sister site Sensacine already wrote.
Quentin Tarantino’s favorite was released in a revised version after 30 years
Utu is set in New Zealand at the end of the 19th century. Te Wheke (Anzac Wallace) is a Maori captain in the British Army. But when the colonial troops terrorized and killed his relatives, he swears bloody revenge. In an interview with RNZ, Tarantino describes Utu as the “truly the best New Zealand film of all time“.
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The film was shown at the Cannes Film Festival in 1984 and received an enthusiastic review by criticism luminary Pauline Kael (via NZ on Screen). After that, however, it more or less disappeared into obscurity; copies of the film were very difficult to obtain in some places.
In 2013, director Geoff Murphy (Quiet Earth) put together a director’s cut. It would take 30 years until fans saw the definitive version of the film. He didn’t reveal which version Quentin Tarantino saw. Probably all of them.
How to watch Tarantino’s favorite New Zealand film Utu?
The revenge epic is currently not available as a subscription on any streaming service. So if you feel like watching Quentin Tarantino’s visually stunning favorite, you can currently only buy it as a physical copy for your home theater.
Geoff Murphy, who died in 2018, was considered by his fans to be one of New Zealand’s greatest filmmakers. In addition to the sci-fi cult film The Quiet Earth – The Last Experiment, he also shot Hollywood blockbusters such as Blaze of Glory or Alert Level: Red 2. He was later involved in Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy as second unit director.
This article was first published in a similar form on Moviepilot in August 2023.