Based on a best-selling novel, this drama, set amongst a remote Eskimo tribe in 1935, was -- at the time it was produced -- the most expensive Canadian motion picture ever made, with a budget of $31 million. Lou Diamond Phillips stars as Agaguk, the rebellious son of tribal leader Kroomak (Toshiro Mifune). The two men disagree strongly over the growing presence of white men in the area. Agaguk wants nothing to do with the interlopers, while his father has opened a fur trade with one of them, Brown (Bernard-Pierre Donnadieu). Agaguk and Kroomak also clash over Igiyook (Jennifer Tilly), a beautiful woman whom both men want to marry, but Agaguk wins her hand. After he slays Brown in an argument, Agaguk is cursed and cast out of the tribe by his father. Agaguk takes Igiyook into the wilderness and struggles to survive there as she gives birth to a child, while Henderson (Donald Sutherland), a lawman, shows up to investigate Brown's death.
~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide