In a violent relationship, it takes a mother's strength to save herself and her children from the man she loved.

ONCE WERE WARRIORS is a violent love story set against a contemporary urban backdrop.

The Auckland production company Communicado bought the rights to Alan Duff’s novel Once Were Warriors almost immediately after it was published in 1990 because it was exactly the type of story the company wanted to make its first feature, explains the film’s producer Robin Scholes. The book then went on to become a New Zealand best seller.