“Like a bolt out of the blue, Korean American filmmaker Lee Isaac Chung achieves an astonishing and thoroughly masterful debut. . . . This is, flat-out, the discovery of this year’s Un Certain Regard batch” (Robert Koehler, Variety). Ngabo is a teenaged boy named after the ancient Rwandan warrior Munyurangabo. He steals a machete in Kigali and sets out for the countryside with his friend. This is a closely observed drama, led by two young men – real-life market porters in Kigali – who are acting on screen for the first time with breathtaking naturalism. But a darker undercurrent simmers beneath the growing tension between Ngabo and Sangwa. There can be no innocent machete in Rwanda. Ngabo has stolen the weapon to return to his own village and take revenge on those who killed his family. Crafted with dramatic precision and deep humanity, Munyurangabo rises to a stunning plea for reconciliation delivered by a poet the boys meet along the way (embodied by Rwanda’s poet laureate, Edouard B. Uwayo). – Cameron Bailey, 2007 Toronto International Film Festival Programme Book

Rated PG.