The Brokenwood Mysteries: Series 1 Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		1.0
Overall		4.0

The Brokenwood Mysteries: Series 1 Blu-ray Movie Review

Nice Town. Watch Your Back!

Reviewed by Michael Reuben July 9, 2015

The fictional New Zealand town of Brokenwood is set in some of the most beautiful country in the world (in Auckland, to be exact). However, as head writer Tim Balme is quick to note, no hobbits or dwarves are in sight, although you may encounter an occasional human with a Tolkien-esque nickname like "Frodo". ("Seriously?" says the head cop investigating the case.) Brokenwood is a farming town with a small city center, but its homicide rate is remarkably high for a village whose population is no more than five thousand. As star Fern Sutherland puts it, "I wouldn't recommend it for a holiday, or you might end up in a bodybag."

Brokenwood is the site of The Brokenwood Mysteries, the latest addition to Acorn Media's collection of detective series and its first Blu-ray entry from the country that gave us Maori culture, Peter Jackson and Flight of the Conchords. Written in the telefilm format, each Brokenwood Mystery was designed to fill a two-hour broadcast slot (with commercials) and runs just over 90 minutes without interruptions. An initial series of four Mysteries was shown on New Zealand's Prime TV in late 2014. A second series is currently filming.

An obvious comparison to Brokenwood is Britain's venerable Midsomer Murders, because of the rural setting and the blend of violence and gallows humor. But Brokenwood doesn't labor under the weight of English country tradition and the familiar eccentricities that accompany the English class system. Writer Balme has said that he takes his inspiration from news reports and that he strives to create characters who feel familiar. I must leave it to Kiwi readers to opine on how accurately the denizens of Brokenwood represent their native land, but one thing is certain: We aren't in Kansas anymore, or England, or anywhere else I've ever visited, in real life or fiction. The world of Brokenwood Mysteries has a rhythm and energy all its own.

Blood and Water (disc 1) Sept. 28, 2014

The series' first episode serves as a pilot, as Det. Inspector Mike Shepherd (Neill Rea) arrives from the unnamed but nearest "big city" to take charge of Brokenwood's latest murder. Rumpled and perpetually unshaven, Shepherd stands out as an eccentric in a community that prides itself on individualism. He drives a beat-up 1971 Holden Kingswood, a classic of sorts built by GM of Australia, but it's not as if Shepherd maintains the car, which looks like it'll barely finish the next trip. He routinely appears distracted, except at unlikely moments when he focuses on unexpected things, such as corpses at a murder scene, with whom he likes to converse. If the dearly departed say anything, no one but Shepherd hears it.

Brokenwood's local chief detective, Gary McCleod (Mark Clare), does not understand why Shepherd has been sent to look over his shoulder, if that is indeed Shepherd's function. McCleod's second-in-command, Det. Kristin Sims (Fern Sutherland), isn't sure to whom she's reporting, and the same goes for Constable Breen (Nic Sampson). In the face of repeated inquiries, Shepherd remains evasive.

The case that has brought Shepherd to Brokenwood is the murder of Nate Dunn, whose body was discovered in the river by two fishermen on an early morning expedition. Ten years earlier, Nate was the prime suspect in the hit-and-run death of his wife, but McCleod could never make a case against him, despite his firm conviction that Nate was guilty, given his history of drinking and spousal abuse. In the ten years since his wife's death, Nate Dunn has continued his misanthropic ways, spending his last night on earth arguing with his son, Dwayne (Marc Pritchard), over Dwayne's girlfriend, Sally (Shoshana McCallum), of whom Nate disapproved.

So great is McCleod's satisfaction at the resolution, however belated and unofficial, of this still-open case that he makes a point of informing Jacinta O'Connor (Gillian Baxter), sister of the late Evelyn Dunn (Sophie Henderson, in flashbacks), that her former brother-in-law has now met a well-deserved fate. But despite the general consensus throughout Brokenwood that Nate Dunn got what was coming to him, Shepherd wonders why it took the killer ten years to get around to avenging Mrs. Dunn. He's not convinced that McCleod had the right suspect.

Complicating Shepherd's activities is the presence in Brokenwood of a face from his own past, a woman named Tania Freeman (Miriama McDowell), who recently moved there with her children. Shepherd's connection with Tania is left initially vague but is gradually revealed by the end of the episode. The detective has a trail of ex-wives behind him—so many, in fact, that he can't seem to remember the exact number—but Tania doesn't appear to be one of them.

By the time Shepherd has worked out the connection between Nate's death and that of his wife ten years earlier, he has developed a fondness for Brokenwood. Maybe it's the country air. Or maybe it's just the sense that a curious detective will never lack for interesting work in a town with so much potential for violence.


Sour Grapes (disc 1) Oct. 5, 2014

The farm that Mike Shepherd has acquired for his Brokenwood residence has vineyards, but Shepherd knows nothing about their maintenance. A local Maori Jack-of-all-trades named Jared Morehu (Pana Hema Taylor) offers his services as a farm hand, which Mike is only too happy to accept, having discovered in Jared an invaluable font of local gossip, history and "deep background". Shepherd is also eager to attend Brokenwood's wine festival, where the reserve chardonnay produced by the Amanda James Winery has routinely won the gold medal among the white wines. This year, however, the result is an upset, with the prize going to Bride Valley Reserve. An even greater upset awaits, however, when the contest's head judge, Paul Winterson (Alistair Browning), is discovered later that night, drowned in a vat of pinot noir.

An obvious suspect, of course, is the incredulous loser, Amanda James (Josephine Davison), a peculiar creature with a touch of Asperger's who simply cannot grasp how her prized vintage failed to prevail, since, to Amanda, winemaking is a matter of pure science. (By contrast, Amanda's father, Ned James (Geoff Snell), is a traditionalist who believes the entire art of crafting a fine vintage has been corrupted by commercialization.) So certain is Amanda that a mistake was made that she insisted on dragging the late Paul Winterson to her winery after the competition to show him and his fellow judge, Erin Formby (Amanda Rees), her state-of-the-art facilities. According to Amanda James, however, Winterson and Formby left after their tour and never returned.

The winning winery is owned by a celebrity radio host, Julian Bright (Peter Elliott), who contends, simply, that the best wine won and cannot wait to inform his massive audience. His foreman, Rob Visnic (Jeff Szusterman), can't explain why their chardonnay broke through this year, but he's delighted at the result. An additional loser, Dominic Nicol (Phillip Spencer Harris), is in such deep financial trouble that the failure to win any prizes will ruin him.

The further Shepherd and his team dig into timelines and forensics, the more confusing the case becomes. The soil of Brokenwood grows marvelous grapes, but they are only the starting point for a successful winery. Other ingredients are required, including a ruthless determination to succeed at all costs.




Playing the Lie (disc 2) Oct. 12, 2014

It's no surprise that a beautiful location like Brokenwood boasts a magnificent golf course. Four committee members of the Brokenwood Golf Club are playing their regular Wednesday morning game when they discover the body of the fifth member, Adele Stone (Roz Turnbull), in a sand bunker. Her face and throat severely burned by insecticide spray, Adele has died a gruesome death. The initial assumption is that, during her regular morning run, she surprised the mysterious "Clubhouse Bandit" who has been regularly burglarizing the facility for food, cash, liquor and trophies, but the police investigation quickly reveals a far more complex web of motives both financial and personal.

The previous evening, the committee convened for a fractious debate on whether to sell half the Club's course to developers in a last-ditch effort to rescue its finances. Adele Stone, the widow of a much older husband whose family donated the land to establish the Club, had fallen out with former champion, Roger Harrington (Ian Hughes), over the Club's future. Roger and Adele had an additional issue between them: Roger's son, Kyle (Nick Hoskins-Smith), and Adele's daughter, Nicky (Greta Gregory), are in love, and both parents disapproved. After her mother's death, Nicky takes to Twitter and Facebook, denouncing Roger Harrington and generally stirring up trouble.

Other suspects present themselves. Committee member Walter Elliott (Calvin Tuteao), who happens to be Jared Morehu's uncle (it is a small town) blames the Stones for the demise of his beekeeping business due to their liberal use of, yes, insecticide. Committee member Neil Bloom (Phil Peleton) made a point of studying the Club's books in detail, and he also happens to be a licensed pharmacist, skilled in the handling of dangerous chemicals. The oldest committee member, Doug Randall (Peter Tait), is a retired farmer, whose property is well stocked with the appropriate chemicals. And then there's the Club manager, Janet Grimm (Donogh Rees), who used to live and work on the Stones' property, until Adele married into the family and fired her. Janet despised Adele for many reasons, including the dead woman's treatment of Janet's son, Hamish Grimm (Elliot Wrightson), a part-time greensman at the Club.

As in most cases involving property, the devil is in the details—or, in this case, the fine print. It also helps to know something about the history of bug sprays.


Hunting the Stag (disc 2) Oct. 19, 2014

A stag party for a husband-to-be takes a turn for the literal, when the bride gives her groom an expensive new rifle as an early wedding present. Since the groom and his two closest friends are dedicated hunters, they decide to forgo the usual routine of drinking and strippers in favor of hunting an actual stag at Cutter's Gully, but something goes wrong. One of them ends up dead, apparently by a bullet from his own rifle. An accident, suicide or murder?

As Shepherd and Sims try to make sense of the conflicting facts, they uncover an almost incestuous tangle of relationships among the participants. The bride and groom were involved in a tragic car accident five years earlier, in which the bride's best friend perished. It was in the aftermath that the survivors became a couple, and the bride remains traumatized from her physical and emotional injuries, often forgetting details of her daily routine. Or is it an act? The other two members of the hunting party work at a tire dealership owned by the brother of the woman who died in the wreck—and Shepherd discovers to his dismay that his acquaintance from a prior life, Tania Freeman, works at the very same tire dealership as an office clerk. Sims, who doesn't miss much, notices the shock of recognition when Tania and Shepherd first see each other, and her first thought is that Tania must be one of the ex-wives to whom Shepherd is constantly referring.

Significant intel is obtained for Shepherd by his indispensable local source, Jared Morehu, and key insights are provided by Gina Kadinsky (Christina Ionda), Brokenwood's sardonic Russian coroner, whose tart exchanges with Shepherd are a highlight of any Brokenwood Mystery. Apparently Gina's upbringing in Vladivostok provided her with unique insight into gunshot wounds. After chasing many red herrings and investigating several blind alleys, Shepherd finds himself in an armed standoff with a ruthless hostage-taker. Brokenwood Mysteries ends its first series with a rapid-fire demonstration that this gently picturesque countryside is pitched atop a geyser of violent impulses that can erupt at any time.

The Brokenwood Mysteries: Series 1 Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Specific information was unavailable about the shooting format of Brokenwood Mysteries, but it is obviously a digital production with final color timing completed by a digital colorist. The directors of photography are Marty Smith (The Almighty Johnsons) and Rewa Harre, who was a camera operator on the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Acorn Media's two 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-rays exhibit all the usual virtues of digital capture, namely, a clean and noiseless image, sharp focus and plenty of fine detail. The New Zealand countryside is beautifully rendered in vivid shades of green and complementary earth tones, into which the white Brokenwood police station, low-key main street and modern-looking farmhouses seem to blend quite naturally. With the exception of Mike Shepherd's "classic" car, everything in Brokenwood Mysteries looks fresh and new, which is one way that the series conveys a sense of being both modern (with iPhones in every hand) and yet thrown back to an earlier time of frontier independence. The visual balance of open spaces and contemporary objects is essential to Brokenwood's unique sensibility.

Occasional scenes stand out for their unusual coloration. Dr. Gina's morgue is always sickly pale from fluorescent and ultraviolet lights. Flashbacks are typically (though not always) desaturated to distinguish them from present day events. Night scenes, when they occur, feature deep blacks, because this is the country; there aren't a lot of structures and street lights throwing off stray illumination.

Although individual episodes vary slightly, Acorn has mastered Brokenwood Mysteries with an average bitrate of around 23 Mbps, which is very good for digitally acquired material. Artifacts are not an issue.

The Brokenwood Mysteries: Series 1 Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Brokenwood's stereo soundtrack, encoded in lossless DTS-HD MA, has a special quality because of its numerous country music selections, a choice dictated by Det. Inspector Mike Shepherd's love of the genre. Among the most common contributors are New Zealand singer-songwriter Delaney Davidson and Canadian import Tami Neilson. Other artists include Barry Saunders, Mel Parsons, Marlon Williams and The Harbour Union. (Shepherd sometimes refers to American artists, but presumably the licensing fees are prohibitively expensive.) Incidental music with a country-western twang is credited to Joel Haines.

Otherwise, the show's soundtrack provides solid support to the story, with good dynamic range, realistic sound effects and distinct stereo separation. The dialogue will no doubt pose a challenge to American ears unaccustomed to New Zealand pronunciations, but there are optional English subtitles for assistance.

The Brokenwood Mysteries: Series 1 Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Interviews (disc 2)


• Neill Rea & Fern Sutherland (1080p; 1.78:1; 5:41): The actors otherwise known as Mike Shepherd and Kristin Sims discuss the research for their parts and describe the town of Brokenwood and its inhabitants.


• Writer Tim Balme (1080p; 1.78:1; 5:34): The series' head writer talks about what makes Brokenwood both representative of New Zealand and unique as a police show.



• Trailers: At startup, disc 1 plays trailers for Acorn Media, Midsomer Murders, Set 22 and Jack Irish: Series 1, which can be skipped with the chapter forward button and are not otherwise available once the disc loads.

The Brokenwood Mysteries: Series 1 Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

In his interview, head writer Tim Balme emphasizes that he did not want to create a lead detective weighed down by a dreary past. He intended Mike Shepherd, with all his quirks, to be a humane counterbalance to the dark deeds and wicked impulses that police work required him to investigate. One of Shepherd's most memorable qualities is his often inappropriate sense of humor, which he sometimes uses to disarm an interview subject but more often to break the tension at a crime scene. "Too soon?" Shepherd will ask his colleagues, after making a tasteless joke about a corpse they've just encountered. It's a facetious question, because, as far as Shepherd is concerned, it's never too soon. While we look forward to Shepherd's further acclimation to Brokenwood, the first series of Brokenwood Mysteries is highly recommended.