Bennett, helps him embrace his Māori heritage. Despite his initial anger, Boogie finds a new niche for himself after the foster home's manager, Mr. Jake is unconcerned and hopes the experience will toughen him up. Nig's younger brother Mark, aka 'Boogie', is placed in a foster home as a ward of the state due to his parents' home life. Nig cares about his siblings but despises his father he is angered when his mother is beaten but does not intervene. He undergoes an initiation beating, passes and is then embraced as a new brother.

Nig, the eldest son of the Heke family, moves out to join a gang whose rituals include getting facial tattoos. Her children fend for themselves, resignedly cleaning the blood-streaked house after their father beats their mother. Beth turns to booze when things go wrong, and exhibits angry outbursts and occasional violence of her own on a smaller scale. When his wife 'gets lippy', he brutally beats her in front of the group, who are too intimidated to interfere. He often invites crowds of friends from the bar to his home for drunken parties. He shows his violent streak by savagely beating a muscular patron who dares disrupt a female singer's ( Mere Boynton) performance. Jake is fired from his job, but remains satisfied with receiving unemployment benefit and spending most days getting drunk at a nearby pub with his friends. Their interpretations of life and being Māori are tested.

After eighteen years, they live in an unkempt state house in South Auckland and have five children. Plot īeth leaves her small Māori village and, much to her parents' chagrin, marries Jake 'The Muss' Heke. It became the highest-grossing film of all-time in New Zealand, and has won numerous awards.

The film was directed by Lee Tamahori, written by Riwia Brown, and stars Rena Owen, Temuera Morrison and Cliff Curtis. The film tells the story of the Heke family, an urban Māori family, and their problems with poverty, alcoholism, and domestic violence, mostly brought on by the patriarch, Jake. Once Were Warriors is a 1994 New Zealand drama film based on New Zealand author Alan Duff's bestselling 1990 first novel.

Once were warriors alan duff