А young Irish woman is caught between two worlds when she has her son stolen from her. In New Zealand during the Maori Wars of 1868, the young woman′s life is tom apart when her son′s Maori grandfather takes him upriver. Repeatedly forced to choose sides in the conflict between British settlers and Maori natives opposed to colonization, she carries on a seven-year search with the intention of winning him back. According to Variety, director Vincent Ward was removed from the production at the insistence of completion guarantors while the film was still shooting (principal photography was completed by director of photography Alun Bollinger). In an even stranger move, Ward was brought back on board in post-production. River Queen nonetheless bears the hallmarks of Ward′s earlier films: the lush, painterly images and the complex historical themes of perception and displacement from The Navigator and Map of the Human Heart.