We round up everything coming to streaming services this week, including Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Disney+, Apple TV+, ThreeNow, Neon and TVNZ+
If you love family-friendly TV: Secrets at Red Rocks (Neon, March 9)
Jam-packed with adventure, thrills and fantasy, adaptation brings to life the Celtic myth of the selkie and transports it to the awe-inspiring landscape of Aotearoa. The adaptation of Rachael King’s beloved book features rising star Korban Knock as Jake, an eccentric 12-year-old who finds a magical sealskin and unwittingly unleashes a spell that threatens to destroy his family. Jake must muster up the courage to face this unexpected danger before it’s too late. Filmed on Pōneke’s rugged coast, Secrets at Red Rocks - like Under the Mountain and Whale Rider - will be sure to capture the imagination of the whole whānau.
If you like nature documentaries with a twist: Endangered Species Aotearoa (TVNZ+, March 3)
Comedian Pax Assadi and conservationist Nicola Toki are back to track down our most at-risk critters. The season kicks off with “armchair wildlife enthusiast” Assadi and Toki visiting Tiritiri Matangi Island to witness the banding and release of the adorable tītipounamu, Aotearoa’s smallest bird. Endangered Species Aotearoa “lifts viewers up with humour”, wrote Tara Ward in her review last year, “and then brings us back to earth by reminding us that as far as the planet goes, we’re up the freshwater creek without a paddle.”
If you enjoy offbeat documentaries: When the Cows Come Home (DocPlay, March 3)
It’s been seven years since Costa Botes’ last feature, but the icon of local independent filmmaking is back with When the Cows Come Home, which is premiering at Whānau Mārama: New Zealand International Film Festival. Botes focuses his lens on farmer-philosopher Andrew Johnstone’s unique relationship with Tilly and Maggie, two cows he saved from slaughter. Described as the “most Kiwi film ever”, When the Cows Come Home explores human-animal commoonication, farming and the whims of fortune. This wonderfully idiosyncratic documentary about Johnstone and his bovine besties is sure to stand out from the herd.
If you like crime-comedy capers: Deli Boys (Disney+, March 6)
In this riotous new outing from Vice star Abdullah Saeed, the pampered lives of Mir (Asif Ali) and Raj (Saagar Shaikh) are upended when their convenience store magnate father dies in a freak accident. The Pakistani-American brothers soon discover that their father’s convenience store empire was a front – the actual family business has been dealing in drugs with a side of murder. À la Michael Corleone it’s now time for the reluctant (and incompetent) mafiosos to take up their father’s mantle in the criminal underworld.
If you like tear-jerking K-drama: When Life Gives You Tangerines (Netflix, March 7)
Set on the picturesque Jeju Island, the “Queen of K-pop” IU and Park Bo-gum star in the hotly anticipated K-dramaWhen Life Gives You Tangerines. Across four seasons from the 1960s to the present day, the K-drama follows Ae-sun, a dream-filled rebel and Gwan-sik, a smitten square peg. With the tagline “Dedicated to you. Still blooming, always dreaming”. Expect When Life Gives You Tangerines to shatter your heart into a thousand pieces and then put it all back together.
Pick of the Flicks: The Conquest of Everest (DocPlay, March 6)
The first successful summit of Mount Everest in 1953 by Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay is the stuff of legend, but few know that fellow Kiwi mountaineer George Lowe was there to film the expedition. Shot in majestic Technicolour, the Oscar-nominated documentary The Conquest of Everest chronicles the history, the preparation and first ascent of the Goddess Mother of the World. One critic described the scene where Hillary and Norgay return from the summit of Everest as “one of the grandest, most throat-choking moments” they’d ever witnessed in film.
