Shrek: Kātahi Te Korokē!

Since 2001, the movie Shrek has been wildly popular throughout the world. This rollicking yarn about a grumpy green ogre and his smart-ass donkey friend can now be enjoyed in te reo Māori. Here’s Tainui Stephens, who directed the Māoriland production, reflecting on a joyful project.

 

Fairy tales were a part of my childhood, thanks to bedtime stories, comics, and books. Words and images took me out of my world and put me in another. Stories of magic and improbable heroes and villains imprinted possibilities on my young imagination. I learned that what you truly want to do has consequences.

Pākehā fairy tales tell us that truth is better than lies, hard work matters, and good triumphs over evil. Generosity, mercy, and kindness are superpowers. Māori fairy tales are part of wider narratives that speak of how darkness becomes light, and how nothing becomes something. We inhabit worlds, and mostly it’s all about relationships.

Somehow, stories of fantasy help us to chart a course through reality.

One modern fairy tale has touched people of many nations. In 1990, American author and cartoonist William Steig published Shrek! His comic book about an ugly monster who leaves home to see the world had mild success. In 2001, the film version became a smash hit everywhere. The story of a grumpy green ogre on a quest to rescue a princess for the benefit of a pompous wannabe king is hilarious. The film is a joyful piss-take of western fairy tales and pop culture. It’s also a touching love story. Shrek became an instant classic, and, in the new era of DVDs, a cheap and reliable babysitter for families around the world.

The film is to be presented to a new generation, but this time in the Māori language. Māoriland Productions, in collaboration with DreamWorks Animation, has produced Shrek: Kātahi Te Korokē! It will be launched this month at the 12th Māoriland Film Festival.

Shrek has been dubbed into more than 40 languages. There have been four sequels. But this is the first time any of the American studio’s films have been adapted into an Indigenous language. The project came about after rangatahi in Ōtaki asked Māoriland to dub Shrek into te reo.

In August 2023, Libby Hakaraia, producer and head of Māoriland, contacted Scott McCarthy the vice president of International Dubbing at DreamWorks. She pitched the idea by saying that the Ōtaki tribes had pursued a successful Māori language revitalisation plan since the mid-1970s. Māoriland, along with the community, had the capacity to do the job.

The timing of the approach was perfect. As Scott tells it: “I got this message from Libby at Māoriland in New Zealand. It was Indigenous People’s Day in Los Angeles, and I thought, what better sign to know that this project had to happen!”

Dubbing Pākehā screen story productions into our language has long been one strand of Māori screen production. It began in earnest in 2004 once the Māori Television Service went to air. It was an economical way of producing the many hours of Māori language content that the new channel needed. Many programmes, cartoons and films were turned into Māori. One of the quirky efforts of those years was the re-versioning of the 1960s American comedy about a talking horse, Mr Ed.

Critics of such programming felt the language benefits were undermined when the same language reinforced western culture and attitudes. However, such productions are only one part of a diverse and staunch Indigenous screen industry. The successful re-versioning of Disney’s most beloved animated films find eager audiences among a growing bilingual population.

Te Kiwa Goddard, the lead translator of Shrek – Kātahi Te Korokē!, understands the popularity of mainstream films for everyone.

“I’m a father of six, and I see this film as not only being gratefully received by my tamariki, their friends and whānau, but by non-Māori speaking people as well. Because it’s the sort of film where you’re carried away by the story and the music.

“There’s a hunger for stories in te reo that bring the world to our tamariki. The biggest challenge is to find the ‘sweet spot’ when it comes to matching the humour, which is funny when expressed in English, and find its equivalent in Māori.”

Our team faced three big challenges: to get the script right, to get the right actors, and to get the right performances.

We turned to the skills of our own community for the language excellence we needed to translate the script. The Māori dialogue had to be correct, meaningful and funny. The hardest part of the task was to use words that matched, as closely as possible, the lip movements of the characters. With the oversight of Hēni Jacob and the guidance of Te Kiwa Goddard, a plan was devised to pay close attention to the Māori soul of the translation.

Kiwa reached out to fellow linguists with acute Māori funny bones. From our first wānanga, we could see that Kaimoni Soutar, Hana Mereraiha, and Kīkī Kihi would also bring real Māori character to the sparkling script.

Donkey has many of the best lines. Kīkī used his own Tainui dialect and Māori sense of humour in his translations.

When Donkey fears Shrek might die from an arrow in his butt, he implores his friend: “If you see a long tunnel, stay away from the light!” In Māori, Kīkī dives into mythology, and Tonki says: “Ka whera a Hinenuitepō — tē tomo ki roto!” (If the goddess of death opens up, don’t go inside!)

At the end of the film, the dragon eats the hastily married Lord Farquaad and spits out his king’s crown. Donkey quips: “Celebrity marriages. They never last do they?” Kīkī makes Tonki play with puns: “Ngā here tere, moumou te ngaungau!” (Speedy hookups aren’t worth nibbling on.)

Just like the English language original, our Māori script was full of crack-up lines. But we needed the right actors to deliver them. Who could be our voice of Shrek, combative yet gentle? Who’d be a sassy motor-mouthed Donkey, scared of being alone? Who’d provide the tender tones of a lovesick Princess Fiona and her dreadful secret? Who could be the arrogant, libidinous Lord Farquaad, with a deep voice beyond his tiny dimensions?

During the casting process, we received many recordings of people portraying their favourite characters from Shrek. Some were quite fabulous. The worst were merely good. Notably, everyone’s reo was excellent.

It was a memorable moment when I discovered who could play Shrek. As I listened to Maaka Pohatu’s audition piece, the first words I heard in perfect Māori, and with a pronounced Scots accent, were: “Och aye, heoi anō.” I played his audition over and over and laughed and laughed. The original Shrek has a Scots accent, and I saw no reason why our own Shrek couldn’t do the same — but only if it was funny.

And what was funny was always front of mind throughout the translating, the casting, and the recording. The chosen core cast all impressed us and DreamWorks because they were fluent, fearless performers. Along with Maaka, Tuakoi Ohia as Princess Fiona, Te Puaheiri Snowden as Donkey, and Jeremy Tātere MacLeod as Lord Farquaad were a quartet of vocal virtuosos. They were hilarious in the studio.

Sometimes, the funniest moments happen because someone has a wild idea. It was my job as the director to know a good idea when they got offered.

In one scene, Shrek is fighting a whole lot of soldiers. Kiwa suggested that Shrek yell out “Doitz!” when he pulverises one of them. This term drives me batty. It’s not linguistically Māori in origin, yet it has become a go-to shout-out for warriors doing a haka or acting out a battle scene. It’s a personal thing. So I said: “No way! I’ll never use that word in any production I’m on!” Everyone laughed . . . and then I pulled my head in. I was wrong. It was a guaranteed gag. So we used it. It’s glorious.

It was easy for our actors to laugh on cue. It wasn’t so easy for them to burp.

In one scene, Shrek has to burp in front of the princess. The princess then burps back. Maaka tried and tried to burp, but the results weren’t impressive. Eventually, we recorded one that befitted his stature. Tuakoi, however, found it impossible to offer anything other than a modest “pop”. She drank glasses of water and soda to generate something respectable. She was so full of water that she found it hard to stand. But somehow, all the air that had built up inside her was released. It exploded. It was gross. It was magnificent.

Libby looks back on a remarkably smooth two-year production. “For all of us, we knew and loved the film. There was an excitement that translated into joy that translated into lots and lots of laughter. There was joy in involving our community and rangatahi in the production. There was joy in exploring the humour in our reo. It was joy that motivated the whole thing from the very beginning.”

Shrek – Kātahi Te Korokē! is our version of a powerful act of the imagination. It’s a story told well and told true. It offers clues on how to accept who you are, and how to find love. As it deconstructs popular fairy tales, it creates a new one. Adults, as much as children, were once the audience for fairy tales. Shrek and all his crazy creatures revive a realm of fantasy for all ages.

We live in a world that is growing stupid. One sure sign of stupidity is a refusal to change your mind. Shrek and Princess Fiona love each other but are too stupid to admit it. Then they change their minds. They do what they truly want to do, and live ugly ever after.

 

Shrek – Kātahi Te Korokē will have its world premiere at the Māoriland Film Festival in Ōtaki next Thursday, March 27. See here for the full programme.

Tainui Stephens, of Te Rarawa, has been fully engaged in the film and television industry since 1984, working with a range of genres and content. He is particularly attracted to compelling Indigenous stories that critique and celebrate the human condition. Tainui lives in Ōtaki with his wife and fellow filmmaker Libby Hakaraia. Together, they and a small whānau team run the Māoriland Film Festival.

E-Tangata, 2025