As the winter is approaching the band of Cheyenne is forced to leave, but an aging Cheyenne man Windwalker deliberately stay beind and decided to die as he thinks his time has come. He succeeded, and as he arrived in the spirit land the vision of his now deceased wife appeared before him and showed that their son who is abducted by the enemy tribe of the Crows and thought to be dead is still alive somewhere. So now reincarnated Windwalker awaken with the main intention to find his long lost son, and at the same time have to protect his people from constant attack of the Crows.

Restrictions of budget prevents this from becoming better (I can imagine this…

A slow-paced Western that focuses simply on native cultures, Kieth Merrill's "Windwalker" basks in natural beauty and tells an interesting story. Focusing on a Cheyenne man at the end of his life, the film tells his story in flashback and provides a post-death adventure of the soul and heart. The film is quietly compelling.

Merrill keeps his action to one man and those who have created drama in the man's life. That man, Windwalker, recounts his youth from his deathbed before embarking one on last important task. Story beats involve romance, children, and heartbreak, and those beats tie together fittingly by film's end.

Filmed in the Wasatch mountains of Utah, the look of 'Windwalker" is natural and lovely. Green forests,…

As an old Cheyenne lies dying, he recounts to his grandchildren a story about how one of his twin sons (their uncle) was stolen from him by a rival Crow. He found the boy, then lost him again, and while musing on that regret, he dies. Later, his remaining son faces attack from a Crow raiding party led, in part, by the missing brother. That dramatic irony appears to rouse the old man, who climbs off his funeral bed and returns to the aid of his children.

Historically this cam past the peak of the revisionist western, and seems like a bit of an afterthought. The sales pitch was “an Indian movie with no cowboys” which gives you an idea…

Not a real review . . . I wish to leave a written note/record on the Internet to properly credit an actor that the IMDB improperly ignores (so Letterboxd as well will continue to publicize inaccurate information).

A decent work, the filmmakers attempted to recognize true indigenous people as much as they could from their Utah location. They had originally cast Chief Dan George as the main character, but he had fallen ill and was nearing his final days. So they used veteran English actor Trevor Howard instead since he was capable and available.

MY main quibble is how the IMDB originally correctly credited Jason Stevens (born 1972, died 2013) as portraying the young 8 year old Horse That Follows,…

Back before streaming, sometimes you would see a movie on TV once and never hear of it again. This was one of those movies for me. 

I saw it on TV around 1981 when I was 10 years old and it made an impression on me. But I never saw it again until now. 

The movie is not exactly how I remember it. Watching it as an adult, it is a very different movie. 

For those that don’t know, Trevor Howard is a white Englishman and here he is playing a Cheyenne elder and is completely miscast. Trevor Howard has bright blue English eyes, and the younger actors playing the same character have dark eyes, dark features, and absolutely nothing in…

Before I go forward with my review of the film Windwalker, let me be clear: I’m super white.
Not only am I super white, but even more so is my Dad. And my mega white Dad does Native American cosplay and has since he was a kid in the Boy Scouts back in the fifties.

Not everyone knows, but there’s a subsection of the Boy Scouts of America called the Order of the Arrow that encourages scouts to dress and even dance in Native American fashion and participate in pow-wows, and etc. And my Dad is way into it, beyond boyhood, even now as an old man.

Many times as a kid, I went to watch my Dad don buckskin…