Raven Hawk is the story
of a young woman's quest to avenge the murder of her parents.
Rhiya Shadowfeather is a young Native American girl about to
be initiated into womanhood through a coming-of-age ceremony
and wears, as does her mother, a tattoo in the image of a
raven hawk. Her father is chief of their tribe and is fighting
to save the reservation land from the hands of greedy
developers who want to profit from a toxic waste disposal
plant on this site.
The film opens with
Rhiya being tutored by her beautiful mother in the meaning of
the raven hawk symbol. It is for strength and honor. As they
are preparing for her ceremony, three killers arrive, hired by
the powerful men who want the Indian land. They break into the
house, beat Rhiya's father and start to rape her mother. Rhiya,
in an attempt to save her father, goes after the attacker with
a knife and in the struggle, the knife plunges into her
father, killing him. The criminals force Rhiya to also kill
her mother. At the trial, they take the position that it was a
ritual gone out of control and Rhiya is sentenced to life
imprisonment. She is unable to defend herself since the
tragedy has plunged her into a catatonic state of mind.
Twelve years later
Rhiya is being transferred from the asylum where her sentence
began, to a maximum security prison. The van transporting her
crashes to avoid hitting a cow in the road. This enables Rhiya
to escape. As she stands overlooking the panorama of the
plains and freedom we see a close up of the head of a raven
hawk. For the scene with the cow, all traffic was stopped in
both directions on the road while filming. There were
wranglers on horseback just off camera on either side of the
road to attend to the cow should it wander. The camera angle
was from behind the cow as the van veers off the road more
than forty feet from the animal. For the close up shots of the
hawk, a Swensen Hawk was used. The trainers placed the bird on
a perch and stood in front of the bird tossing a piece of food
which the bird particularly liked back and forth to each
other. The bird merely looked side to side following the
movement of the food.
Since the van was
burned in the accident, Rhiya is presumed dead. This allows
her the element of surprise as she begins to avenge her
parent's deaths. We see her stealing a horse from a corral.
The scene opens with a wrangler trying to hold the reins of
the horse while he beats it. The horse knocks him out and
Rhiya saddles the horse and rides out to the reservation. We
see her jumping the horse over a fence and onto the Northgate
property, once her peoples' reservation and now a toxic waste
disposal plant. For the scene in which the horse is being
beaten, there was no contact visible between the actor and the
horse. Sound effects of a beating were heard as the actor held
the reins of the horse and the horse reared up at him. Also,
we never see the horse actually kicking the man, only the
sound effect and the actor falling. For this scene, a trained
rearing horse was used and sound effects were used to create
the impression that the man was beating the animal. A second
jumping horse was used for the segment of the scene where
Rhiya jumps the fence.
The guards at the
plant, in a jeep and on motorcycle, chase her off the
Northgate property, but Rhiya rides hard out into the hills.
During the chase, the jeep loses her and the motorcycle
overturns as she rides off over the hills. She rides up to her
former home which has fallen into disrepair and reminisces
about her parents. For the hard riding, the horse galloped for
approximately 500 yards and was photographed from a
helicopter. The motorcycle followed at a safe distance. The
terrain was checked so that the horse only ran through sand
and small sage brush.
Rhiya goes to the
cave which holds the ceremonial garments she was to wear
twelve years earlier before the tragedy occurred. During her
years at the asylum she was obsessed with physical training
and grew exceptionally strong. As she lights a fire in a
ceremony of her own and meditates for strength, we realize
that she is a woman warrior. During this sequence, we see
flashes of memories and a vision of a hawk's head moving in
slow motion and in close up. The bird action in this scene was
shot in the same way as the earlier sequence.
She first locates
Gordy Fowler, one of the men who attempted to rape her mother.
He is now a diving instructor and she lures him off to go
diving with her. Once out at sea, she identifies herself to
him. He is both guilty and panicked. He tries to throw her off
the boat, but she fights with him causing them both to be
thrown overboard. Now unmanned, the boat is out of control
and, while Rhiya dives out of the way, it runs Fowler down and
kills him. Because of the accident, the Department of Indian
Affairs sends an investigator. He finds that Fowler was not
only run over by the boat, but also scalped. Fowler is found
to have been independently wealthy due to his stock in the new
disposal plant.
Rhiya next finds the
second attacker, Rice, who is inspecting a bridge and plans to
cover up it's faulty construction. She cuts his harness rope
as he hangs from the bridge and he plunges to his death. The
local sheriff, who was part of the initial plan to frame Rhiya
for her parents' murders, is told by the powerful boss,
Thorne, to keep these deaths quiet. The deaths make them
realize that Rhiya did not die in the car crash. Deputies are
sent out to track her, but she alludes them.
Thorne, who
masterminded the attack on her family and the framing of Rhiya,
returns to the area with three hired killers. Watching his
arrival is a man on horseback, Hudson, who proves to be an old
friend of Rhiya's family and married to a Native American
woman. He goes to look for Rhiya in the hills and she ambushes
him, knocking him off his horse. She is angry that he never
fought back to save the reservation. For this scene a trained
falling horse was used.
The three hired
killers track Rhiya on horseback. They find the home of her
family and burn it down. Rhiya sees it burning from the ridge
and rides to the house. Flames are never seen, only smoke, and
nowhere near horses. They track her to Hudson's cabin and
while they are torturing him, she rides in. They ride out
after her as she leads them through the woods and does a
running dismount, letting the horse continue on to mislead
them. She swings out of a tree, knocking one of the killers
off his horse and knocking the horse down. The horse is seen
lying on its side as she fights her attacker on the ground,
killing him. For this stunt a trained falling horse was used.
A stunt person jumped from the tree giving the appearance that
the attacker knocked the horse down with the rider. Prior to
filming the ground was raked and prepared to be soft for the
fall.
The other two chase
her and one of them knocks her off her horse. The horse runs
off camera. Professional wranglers were just off camera to
retrieve the horse and a professional stunt woman was used in
place of the actress. Rhiya is able to kill this hired gun as
well. The last killer is seen riding slowly around the rocks
tracking her. He finally ropes her and drags her behind his
horse. With her incredible strength, she is able to use the
rope and the momentum of the horse to pull herself up behind
him, knock him off the horse and have the horse drag him
instead. The scene was shot in cuts with both a trained stunt
woman and fake light weight dummy being used. The route of the
drag was walked and cleared of all stones and other
impediments prior to filming. The horse was cued to begin
running and pulled the dummy if the camera was at a distance.
The stunt woman is seen in the close up shots.
When Rhiya finds
that the murderers have killed Hudson and his wife, she goes
to Thorne and threatens him. She rides to Thorne's mansion,
but as she nears, her horse senses trouble, whinnying and
nervously stepping. She is wounded by the last of Thorne's
thugs who then chases her by motorcycle. She rides to the edge
of a cliff and dismounts. After a chase across the rock ledges
and cliffs, she kills him as well. Returning to Thorne's
mansion, we see through a doorway, a bird in his kitchen
flying across the room. There are also shots of the bird
perching in several places in the house, as if to taunt him.
You are to assume that this is Rhiya, shape shifting into her
raven hawk totem. For this scene, the hawk was placed by the
trainer and flew A to B in the kitchen towards its own perch
which was behind the kitchen door out of camera range. The
bird was controlled by the trainers with a "jess",
which is a leg harness usually made of leather. For the
purpose of filming, the jess is made of vinyl covered cable
attached to a length of monofilament held by the trainer to
prevent the bird from flying into the camera. When the bird is
seen perched in different places, the trainer was always
present holding the jess and placing the bird prior to
filming.
Finally, the
Marshall from the Department of Indian Affairs arrives to save
Rhiya and bring justice to Thorne. In a final scene, we see
Rhiya riding over the hills into the sunset.
In general, the
animal action on this film was mild. For the many scenes where
mild riding was done, the horses cantered or galloped for
short distances of about 100 feet in front of the camera. Pick
up wranglers were present at all times, especially during the
chase scenes. Whenever gunfire was present in the same scene
with horses, the horses' ears were protected with cotton and
quarter loads were used. The majority of the horses were local
to the shooting location and acclimatized to the terrain.