The body of a young Māori woman is found in the
heart of Hinepōkai Forest, her throat slit in a
pattern matching old whakapapa carvings. The
local police chief, a stoic Pākehā with a
reputation for closing cases quickly, calls in
exrugby star Tane Rangi, now a drunkard living
on his father’s dairy farm. Tane’s only skill
left is reading the land — and he knows this
death isn’t natural.
The forest itself seems to resist entry. Trees
lean inward like sentinels, and compasses spin
wildly. Tane meets Kahu, a Māori historian and
activist who believes the woman was part of a
secret lineage tied to a 1907 land grab that
erased an entire marae. They form an uneasy
alliance: Kahu needs Tane’s knowledge of hidden
trails; Tane needs Kahu’s understanding of the
forest’s spirit.
They find the marae ruins, overgrown but intact.
Inside, they discover a carved stone figure —
Hinepōkai, the forest guardian — with a face
that shifts when viewed from different angles. A
ritual circle surrounds it, filled with rusted
nails and bloodstained cloth. Kahu identifies
the symbols as a colonialera attempt to bind the
land’s spirit, using stolen Māori mana to fuel a
mining operation.
Tane’s rugby past returns when he finds a rusted
rugby ball embedded in the earth, its leather
cracked with age. It belonged to a British
officer who died in the 1907 conflict. The curse
was never meant to end — it was designed to keep
the land weak, its people divided.
The final confrontation comes at dusk. Tane,
drunk but lucid, breaks the circle with a
pickaxe, shattering the stone figure. The forest
stills, then roars back to life — trees bending,
birds singing in unison. The land heals, but not
without cost. Kahu vanishes into the bush,
leaving behind only a single tā moko etched into
a fallen log.
Tane returns to the farm, no longer a drunk, but
a man who walks with the land. The rugby ball
remains in the soil, a reminder that some ghosts
are not meant to be buried — only reckoned with.
