MovieChat Forums > Hunt for the Wilderpeople (2016) Discussion > Majestical

Majestical

posted 8 years ago by budarc
1 reply | jump to latest

I didn't think anything would come close to the experience I had watching Swiss Army Man this year, but this one came as a real surprise. I really wish I could have gotten to see it in a theater with a crowd because I'm sure it would have been a lot of fun. Unfortunately, it seemed to have skipped the theater circuit entirely in my neck of the woods. As an American I found it delightful, but I'm curious what 'Kiwi'-centric jokes I may have missed since it seems to play better in its home country.

As a sidenote, it's interesting that most of my favorite movies this year (Swiss Army, Wilderpeople, Captain Fantastic) all had to do with people going back to the wild.

[–] Furious_is 8 years ago

At one stage when Ricky is talking to the young Maori girl, she suddenly has a halo surrounding her, then he sees /hears on the TV an old school NZ commercial for Flake chocolate. It played in the early 80s, way before Ricky would have been born. "Only the crumbliest tastiest chocolate, tastes chocolate never tasted before."

Also all of the TV personalities were genuine NZ TV personalities, especially John Campbell a much loved but recently removed from our screens news reader. He basically was very publicly ousted by a short sighted TV network. He was hugely popular and the network went against popular opinion to their own detriment and fired him. He was pretty much a news institution in NZ.

When Hec buries his dog Zag, he washes his hands in the stream and then passes them over his head, as is the Maori custom when leaving a burial site or graveyard, to wash the tapu (sacred or forbidden) spirits away.

Towards the end of the film Psycho Sam shows Hec and Ricky his Ute (the NZ term for a pick-up truck, short for Utility Vehicle) nicknamed Crumpy. Barry Crump was the author of the source material, and famously starred in an 80s commercial for a Toyota Ute, featuring a scene when driving through a particularly rough patch of terrain he turns to his companion and says, Sorry she's a bit rough mate, a line which Ricky says during their getaway. Another commercial that would have played far before Ricky was born.