By George & Josh Bate
Everyone’s been there. Down on your luck. Struggling to make ends meet or find purpose. Life seems hopeless and prospects seem low. But what if a successful, charismatic salesman suddenly appeared and presented you with the most tantalizing of lifelines – the promise of realizing the American Dream (even if you are not living in America)? In a year that has already included films like Obsession and Everybody Wants to Fuck Me tell be-careful-what-you-wish-for stories, writer-director Alex Liu interrogates the deceptive allure of capitalism and the values that corrode by operating within that system in his new dark crime comedy premiering at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival.
God Bless You, Mr Kopu follows Mafu Kopu (Dimitrius Shuster-Koloamatangi, Predator: Badlands), a down-on-his-luck Tongan native whose life in New Zealand has not gone to plan. Without a job and not so much as a penny to his name, Mafu finds hope when he encounters Marco (Simon Rex, Red Rocket), a sleek, enigmatic American salesman who convinces him to join a scheme to rob prospective customers using Marco’s power of hypnosis. But as the money starts to accrue, Mafu begins to question the ethics he has left behind in teaming up with Marco.
The HoloFiles recently had the opportunity to speak with God Bless You, Mr. Kopu filmmaker Alex Liu and stars Dimitrius Shuster-Koloamatangi, Simon Rex, and Grace Palmer about their new film, the inspiration behind it, the art to pulling off a great plot twist, and more.
Liu marks his feature debut with a film that seamlessly oscillates between genres and has something important to say about the erasure of cultural identity and autonomy that capitalism often leads to. Liu discussed the origins of the idea for his film. “The kernel of [the film] was The from a scribble of notes I made which said, ‘Door-to-door salesman uses insert various techniques here to sell stuff,” Liu explained. “And I just like the idea of being half Tongan and half Pālangi,” a term referring to white, “I’m always told I’m too white to be Tongan or too Tongan to be white. And so that constant struggle of who the hell am I? And code switching a lot of the time has been an interesting life. And I wanted to explore that. And I thought a great way to do it would be if someone came in and literally changed someone else.”
But why did that person who comes into Mafu’s life and change everything need to be a sleek American salesman? “I think, because we’re so influenced by American culture back home, that just felt like a good entry point,” Liu described. “An American comes over and throws themselves onto [you], espouses both their values and their culture and things onto someone just to see what would happen if someone just took it completely within grasp.”
With a performance that resembles the bravado of Tom Cruise’s Frank T.J. Mackey from Magnolia and the confidence of Brad Pitt’s Rusty Ryan from Ocean’s Eleven, Rex strikes the perfect balance of allure and disconcertment to sell how easily Mafu falls under his spell and becomes his partner-in-crime.
“The film’s set in ‘93, because it was the height of a recession and a lot of Pacific Islanders were out of work,” Liu explored as he discussed how Marco’s composure and style belie his true nature. “I feel like times have changed, but in the ‘90s to me, Americans were the coolest. Like I wanted nothing more than to be American and live in the States and live in New York and just be cool. Times have changed a little bit, but that idea I just liked playing. And I also love the idea that Marco is eight years too late in his fashion, but, because New Zealand’s so behind, he’s still cool…So that naivety of Kiwis being like, ‘This guy’s cool,” it’s fun to play with.”
Marco wins the hopeless and hapless Mafu over with a demonstration of how effective he is at selling FORGET, a US-based cleaning product company. The two quickly make a great partnership – Mafu gets Marco in people’s homes as they go door-to-door to sell the product, after which Marco uses his strange powers of hypnosis to convince people to give them all they’re worth.
Over the course of the film, Mafu undergoes a transformation. Initially mild-mannered and lacking in confidence, the Tongan comes to realize he can take up space in the world and is willing to flaunt his newfound wealth and style. This gradual transformation afforded Dimitrius Shuster-Koloamatangi a unique challenge to tackle as an actor. “I met Alex maybe a year before we started shooting on set,” Shuster-Koloamatangi said. “So I had a lot of time to flesh out, do a lot of script work in terms of where he is at certain points. And then, yeah, once we had the schedule, it was literally just trying to stay on top of what we’re filming, making sure he’s at the right place at the right time in terms of the way he looks, the way he’s acting. Like you said, he starts off real naive, very desperate, very down on his luck. And as the film progresses, he begins gaining fake confidence, is what I call it. He just begins kind of masking in a different way and taking cues off of Marco’s character on how to be successful. And then, yeah, that kind of turns on its head.”
Indeed, all of Mafu’s overnight success turns on its head, thanks in part to Rex’s Marco Cass. The Red Rocket actor explored how he prepared to place a conman with a proclivity for hypnotism. “[Hypnotism] isn’t necessarily a con, but there’s a musicality to the way they talk when they’re doing hypnosis,” Rex said. “We looked at some on YouTube and there’s a cadence to how they hypnotize people, which was fun to do. I get cast a lot as the likable asshole, which is a fun kind of lane to be in. So this had elements of that, obviously….It’s fun to go into that dark place because you’re allowed to, right? You can’t really do that in the world.”
Although God Bless You, Mr Kopu is largely a two-hander between Shuster-Koloamatangi and Rex, there is a third character who plays an integral role in the proceedings. Grace Palmer’s Margot enters the story as Mafu’s love interest, although there’s more than meets the eye for the FORGET employee. Palmer’s performance alters depending on whether she is interacting with Mafu or Marco, a juxtaposition the New Zealand native found interesting to portray. “My favorite thing is doing a scene with someone and coming out of it feeling I honestly got so lost in whatever moment it is and their performance totally determines where you go and how it feels,” Palmer stated. “These guys are such different people. [Marco] would bring out the star or the kind of the peacock in her…We’d already agreed that our relationship was so toxic, like just so fiery, whereas this [with Mafu] was much more romantic and sweet…so much softer and allowed her to be more vulnerable.”
God Bless You, Mr Kopu eventually converges on the kind of stunning plot twist that changes your entire perception of the preceding film. But plot twists can be a tricky thing to pull off, especially in a day and age in which audiences are more well-versed in storytelling than ever before. Given this challenge, Liu explored the art behind a good plot twist.
“With this twist, the balance of it was giving the audience everything without them knowing,” Liu reflected. “Now, I think that’s probably true for a lot of big twists, like when you think about The Sixth Sense or whatever. Everything’s kind of there. And the art of the twist isn’t like, ‘How do I make whatever the reveal is crazy?’ It’s like, ‘How do I make the audience kind of get annoyed that they didn’t figure it out?’ I think the secret to a good twist is the audience doesn’t figure it out.”
When asked to describe God Bless You, Mr Kopu in three words, Shuster-Koloamatangi offered up some spot-on terms. “Really good movie,” he said. Rex, meanwhile, described the film as “The Blunder Down Under,” which one could easily imagine as a tagline gracing posters.
Liu, however, offered an unexpected three words: “Pacific New Wave.” Liu e xplained what these words refer to. “It’s a term that a group of us are throwing around back home,” the half-Tongan, half-Pālang filmmaker said. “And it just feels cool. It’s nice to be in the new wave phase. You know, it’s cool.”
Palmer was quick to point out that Liu is the Pacific New Wave, the artist pioneering a new generation of Polynesian filmmakers building upon work of the past to branch out and tell a range of different, unexpected stories. Liu does exactly that with God Bless You, Mr Kopu, a film that is difficult to pin down into one category or genre. At times, it’s a dark comedy, others a social satire, others a 70s-esque crime thriller. Liu deftly embraces these genres and ideas, culminating in one of the biggest pleasant surprises out of TIFF 2026.