The Grasscutter is a 1990 film

Film

A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...

 directed by Ian Mune

Ian Mune

Ian Barry Mune, OBE is a New Zealand character actor and director. He co-wrote and starred in Roger Donaldson's first film, Sleeping Dogs. He also directed Came a Hot Friday, which featured comedian Billy T. James as the Tainui Kid, and What Becomes of the Broken Hearted?, the sequel to Once Were...

 and written by Roy Mitchell

Roy Mitchell

Roy Mitchell may refer to:* Roy Mitchell , American baseball player* Roy Mitchell-Cárdenas , Mexican-American musician and author* Roy Mitchell...

. It was shot in southern New Zealand

New Zealand

New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...

, mostly in Queenstown

Queenstown, New Zealand

Queenstown is a resort town in Otago in the south-west of New Zealand's South Island. It is built around an inlet called Queenstown Bay on Lake Wakatipu, a long thin Z-shaped lake formed by glacial processes, and has spectacular views of nearby mountains....

 and Dunedin

Dunedin

Dunedin is the second-largest city in the South Island of New Zealand, and the principal city of the Otago Region. It is considered to be one of the four main urban centres of New Zealand for historic, cultural, and geographic reasons. Dunedin was the largest city by territorial land area until...

.

The music was written by Don McGlashan

Don McGlashan

Don McGlashan is a New Zealand musician and songwriter who has been a member of bands such as The Plague, From Scratch, The Whizz Kids, Blam Blam Blam, The Front Lawn, The Mutton Birds and, from 2009, The Bellbirds. He composed several pieces for the Limbs Dance Company...

 and Wayne Laird.

A landscape architect (Cooper) living in New Zealand finds that his past catches up with him. Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) loyalists from Northern Ireland

Northern Ireland

Northern Ireland is one of the four countries of the United Kingdom. Situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, it shares a border with the Republic of Ireland to the south and west...

 have discovered the new identity he was given after becoming a "supergrass

Supergrass (informer)

Supergrass is a slang term for an informer, which originated in London. Informers had been referred to as "grasses" since the late-1930s, and the "super" prefix was coined by journalists in the early 1970s to describe those informers from the city's underworld who testified against former...

" and come after him, drastically increasing New Zealand's violent crime rate in the process.