There was the movie Utu (1983), which was SORT of a western filmed and set in New Zealand in the 1870s. Double barreled shotguns was the weapon of choice. After the Brits massacre a Maori village, a Maori soldier sets out for revenge.
Slow West was another New Zealand-made western, this one set the United States in the 1870s, a New Zealand-British co-production. The landscape in New Zealand was more interesting than the western US and way more interesting than locations in Spain used in spaghetti westerns.
A cute Scottish youth named Jay (Kodi Smit-McPhee) comes to the United States to find his girlfriend who fled Scotland with her father after her father accidentally killed Jay's uncle. Jay doesn't know that there's a bounty on his girlfriend and her father. He hires a bounty hunter to accompany him for protection. He doesn't realize that he's leading him and a number of competing bounty hunters right to her.
It avoided almost all the things I hate about westerns, the ugly clothes, the ugly towns, the ugly garish saloons, people whose only recreation was hanging around in bars and men whose only dream in life is to someday own a ranch.
Surprisingly violent considering it premiered at Sundance.
Available on Netflix.
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| Teaching the young fellow to shave with a really sharp knife. |
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