Director: Lee Tamahori
Guy Pearce plays a battle-scarred soldier turned lay preacher whose arrival in an early 1800s New Zealand settlement sets off a chain of violence he thought he'd left behind, in Lee Tamahori's 2024 historical drama The Convert.
What is The Convert about?
Munro crosses an ocean to build a quieter life, taking up a modest post ministering to a small British colonial outpost on the New Zealand coast. He arrives believing his soldiering days are behind him, but the land he's stepped into is anything but settled. Two rival Māori chiefdoms are locked in an escalating conflict, and the colonists' presence only adds fuel to tensions that predate them by generations. When Munro crosses paths with Maianui, a powerful and strategically sharp chief, the two men size each other up across a cultural and political divide neither fully controls. What starts as an uneasy exchange turns into something closer to an alliance, pulling Munro away from the pulpit and back toward the kind of hard choices he came here to escape. Tamahori, directing on his home turf, frames the standoff with attention to landscape and ritual, letting the film's tension build from negotiation and consequence rather than spectacle alone.
Cast & crew
Guy Pearce anchors the film as Munro, opposite Tioreore Ngatai-Melbourne and a strong ensemble of New Zealand talent including Antonio Te Maioha, Jacqueline McKenzie, Te Kohe Tuhaka, Lawrence Makoare, Dean O'Gorman, and Jared Turner, several of whom bring deep familiarity with the region's Māori history and language to their roles.
Context & significance
Released in 2024 and shot in Australia and New Zealand, the film is director Lee Tamahori's return to the historical territory that shaped his earlier work, this time centering Māori political life and colonial pressure with careful period detail across its nearly two-hour runtime.
Where & how to watch
A Persian dub is available on K-Time, so the film plays fully in Farsi for viewers who prefer that experience over reading subtitles. Browsing this page costs nothing; streaming the film itself just requires signing into a K-Time account, and the whole viewing experience — menus included — stays in Farsi for the diaspora audience it's built for.