While it's taken 14 years to bring to the screen, the the release is timely for TVNZ's new series about the Polynesian Panther Party that fought for the rights of the Pacific Island and Maori communities at a time of increasing racial-targeting from the Government and Police Force. The Panthers is set in 1974, three years after a group of young Polynesian street-gangsters and university students who'd formed a revolutionary movement group. The Party sought to protect the Polynesian community from racial discrimination, prejudice and social inequality.