Sleeping Dogs - DaaVeeDee

Sleeping Dogs (DVD) (*)

$34.99

Screened, competed or awarded at:
Other Film Festival Awards

Language Selections:
English ( Dolby Digital Stereo )
Spanish ( Dolby Digital Stereo )

Product Origin/Format:
Spain ( PAL/Region 0 )

Running Time:
107 min

Aspect Ratio:
Fullscreen

Special Features:
Filmographies
Interactive Menu
Scene Access

Movie filmed in 1977 and produced in:
New Zealand ( Australia, New Zealand )

Directed By:
Roger Donaldson

Written By:
Christian K. Stead
Ian Mune

Actors:
Sam Neill ..... Smith
Nevan Rowe ..... Gloria
Ian Mune ..... Bullen
Warren Oates ..... Col. Willoughby
Ian Watkin ..... Dudley
Clyde Scott ..... Jesperson
Donna Akersten ..... Mary
William Johnson ..... Cousi
Don Selwyn ..... Taupiri
Davina Whitehouse ..... Elsie
Melissa Donaldson ..... Melissa
Dougal Stevenson ..... News Reader
Bernard Kearns ..... Prime Minister
Raf Irving ..... Reporter
Tommy Tinirau ..... Old Maori Man

Synopsis:

Roger Donaldson's "Sleeping Dogs," from New Zealand, is a very well made and acted movie about a time in the near future when New Zealand goes into a state of martial law, and underground groups form to fight against the dictatorship. Donaldson uses precise details of Hitler's takeover of Germany and plugs them into the New Zealand setting, and then he gives us a hero who wants to sit the fight out and is publicized by the government into being a symbol of opposition.
American troops are sent in to help the New Zealanders put down the "rebellion," and the rebels conduct a running guerilla battle against them.

Following the break-up of his marriage caused by his wife's affair with another man named Bullen (Mune), "Smith" (Neill) arranges to live on the Coromandel peninsula on an island owned by a Maori tribe. Meanwhile, political tensions escalate as an oil embargo leaves the country in an energy crisis. Tensions boil over into a civil war and guerrilla activity. However, Smith enjoys his peaceful island life and has little interaction with the rest of society. Smith's idyllic life is shattered when a bomb is exploded in a nearby town, and police arrive on his island to arrest him and search for illegal weapons. After they find a cache of explosives that Smith had been unaware of, he is taken to a police station where he is imprisoned, interrogated and tortured. He recognises one policeman as a former schoolmate, Jesperson (Clyde Scott) who then takes over the interrogation. Jesperson reveals that the Government regard Smith as a key leader of the guerillas and offers expulsion from New Zealand in return for a confession, or alternatively trial by a military tribunal with a likely death sentence. During a prison transfer, Smith deliberately forces himself to vomit to confuse his captors and escapes. He then flees the city, finding work at a small camping ground and love with a local girl. Happy to be outside the civil war again he blends in again until a US army unit arrives and takes over the camping ground. Smith clashes with the commander of the US forces Willoughby (Oates) and is suspected of being a rebel sympathiser. The arrival of Bullen (who is now a senior leader of the underground guerrilla movement) complicates matters further. As the US forces capture and kill more rebels, Smith is unwillingly drawn into participating in an attack on the military unit by Bullen. Fleeing the scene of the successful attack, Smith and Bullen are pursued by Government forces and cornered in a nearby forest. After Government forces surround the guerrillas and bomb their encampment, Smith and Bullen escape, only to be cornered by Jesperson and his elite squad. After Bullen is fatally wounded, Smith - wishing an end to what is happening - deliberatly provokes Jesperson into shooting him.

Recluse Smith (Sam Neill) is drawn into a revolutionary struggle between guerillas and right-wingers in New Zealand. Implicated in a murder and framed as a revolutionary conspirator, Smith tries to maintain an attitude of non-violence while caught between warring factions.

This product was added to our catalog on Thursday 25 April, 2013.

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