Broken English

The plot of "Broken English" is easy to summarize:

Boy and girl meet. Boy and girl like each other. Girl's father is violent and jealous. Father hates boy. Boy must subdue father. Boy fights father and wins. (Unfortunately, boy accidently runs over father's vicious but hapless dog in the process.) Boy and girl live happily ever after.

The video jacket says "Broken English" was made by the producers of "Once Were Warriors." Many of the two movies' elements are similar (notably the primitive father in each), though this one has only about one-fifth the quantity of stomach-churning violence of the greatly overrated "Once Were Warriors." But in both movies, the father exhibits much violently stupid behavior, and midway through this one I wondered, "Why don't the police just lock the guy up?" I gave "Broken English" a rating of six.

Was drawn to this on IMDB by seeing an actor who I thought was 'Ivan' so i looked up the movie. I recall this was hauntingly beautiful, yet quite tense and violent. rmalcus-1 yes! There is a soundtrack and I used to have it. I don't know where it is now. There was one track in particular I played over and over. Loved all the music too.

There have been a lot of great culture clash stories, and culture clash love stories, over the years, but this isn't one of them. Part of the problem is we have three cultures here (New Zealand, Bosnian, and Chinese), yet we really don't explore them in depth (except perhaps the Bosnians), so there seems no apparent reason why the New Zealand and Bosnians wouldn't get along except for plot purposes. And while the sex between the two main characters is well-handled, it seems to be the only thing the relationship is based on; we don't really see them get to know each other. The two main characters are appealing, and the two actors who were in ONCE WERE WARRIORS(here playing brothers instead of father and son) are both good, but it still falls short.

This movie was hard to track down. Living as I do in America, I had to order a VHS copy. I saw the NC-17 version, by the way, which I didn't find to be too graphic. The sex scene was extremely sexy and I thought the actors playing Nina and Eddie, the young couple at the center of the movie, had a ton of chemistry. You could believe they were attracted to each other. Nina, the Croation daughter of Ivan, was an interesting character: a wild rebel and a scared child eager to remain her father's favorite all in one. The actor who played Ivan did the best job, as a man who fled his homeland due to ethnic cleansing and finds himself obsessed with race and dissatisfied with his new life in New Zealand. The beginning half of this movie was more enjoyable than the latter half, when the story devolves into a slightly predictable romantic comedy and none of the interesting implications about class, race, and family are dealt with in a serious way. However, a lot of romantic movies never even ask the audience to think about anything greater at all, so Broken English still comes out ahead of more traditional movie fare. Perhaps it's because this movie comes from the producers of "Once Were Warriors" which is one of my favorite dramas of all time. Watch for the romance between Nina and Eddie (played by Julien Arahanga from "Once Were Warriors",) Ivan, and Martin Csokas' portrayal of Ivan's menacing son.

In a nutshell, this is a romance story that involves a culture clashes between New Zealanders, Chinese and Bosnians. Since the characters were unappealing, I found it impossible to get "involved" in their romances and problems.

I don't understand the NC-17 rating, either. The sex scenes weren't anything that strong to warrant that rating, nor is the movie filled with just sex. The language isn't the best with a lot of f-words, but that doesn't warrant a NC-17 rating, either.

It was a modern-day Romeo and Juliet story with a lot lower morals that what you would have seen in the real Romeo and Juliet days. Frankly, I found the movie boring, but women would probably like this movie a lot more than men, if the language didn't turn them off.

The scenery was nice but I wasn't surprised at that. I have yet to see something filmed in New Zealand that wasn't beautiful. That must be a great-looking country.