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Movie Review: 'Whale Rider'

From the Maori culture of New Zealand comes Whale Rider, a film with an appealing 11-year-old central character. She's seeking to follow in her father's footsteps as tribal chieftain. Her grandfather is skeptical. NPR's Bob Mondello offers a review.

Copyright 2003 NPR

Bob Mondello, who jokes that he was a jinx at the beginning of his critical career — hired to write for every small paper that ever folded in Washington, just as it was about to collapse — saw that jinx broken in 1984 when he came to NPR.