WINNER: (Damon Fepuleai) Best Film BEC Film Festival.
While RED, WHITE AND BRASS is not a great film, it is a heart warmingly good humoured flick with a heart the size of a bass drum. And best of all, this New Zealand production shines a positive light on Tongan based New Zealanders in not too dissimilar a fashion to the way working class Northerners of the U.K. were highlighted in THE FULL MONTY.
The story of a group of young Tongan men, passionate about rugby union, living in Wellington and keen to attend the now famous, Tonga v France game of World Cup 2011, comes to life here; all based on actual events. Their aim; to establish a marching band to play on the pitch, pregame, with only 5 weeks to prepare. Fanciful? well not really. The screen play is co-written by Halaifonna (Nua) Finua, the real-life drum major of the band, which did play, pregame. Therefore, we assume there must be some legitimacy to the big screen depiction.
First time feature director, Damon Fepuleai uses all the tropes most often offered up by Hollywood. His hero Maka (John-Paul Foliaki), is totally self deprecating and provides enough likable rogue qualities to keep us rooting for the lads. Quite possibly the strongest performances come from the real life parents of writer Halaifonna Finua; Valeti and Tevita Finau playing Maka's parents, Elisiva and Rev Pita. They are terrific.
At 85 minutes, RED, WHITE & BRASS does not tax the brain and may just leave you with a hankering for a visit to Tonga one day. I bet they are a people with smiles as wide as these likable folk. 8GUMS.
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