In 1994, this director Lee Tamahori delivered one of the biggest debuts of the decade, firing on all six cylinders with his heartbreaking social-realist melodrama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes are a working-class Maori family in Auckland's south: Temuera Morrison plays the drinking, brawling, bragging dominant welfare claimant the father, who comes home from pub visits with his pathetic sycophant mates to terrorise and assault Beth, his spouse, played by Rena Owen, and their five children. He shows no concern to the fate of his older boys who have fallen into gang life and illegal activities, including his sensitive daughter the girl, who shows promise as a storyteller. One son gets gang tattoos; the other is taken to a juvenile reformatory where he is at least educated in the ways of indigenous heritage – the haka and the taiaha warrior spear – and learns dignity and self-respect. Meanwhile at the disordered home, the daughter is assaulted by a repulsive acquaintance “Uncle Bully”; disaster follows, and the mother forcefully challenges the wretched Jake: “Our people once were warriors, but in contrast to you, Jake, they were people with mana, dignity; people with spirit …”
Emotional Violence and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori let rip with such intense drama, and landed sledgehammer punches with bar sequences, domestic moments and the gang ritual initiation scenes, directing them with confidence and energy. He created a gutsy, heartfelt picture with a distinctly 90s streak of edginess. It succeeded with viewers and critics, and – whether positive or negative – strongly influenced industry executives in Hollywood who recognized how he could apply this energy and talent to commercial projects.
Hollywood Career and Diverse Work
Stateside, the director directed the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who ignore procedure, and then a script by Mamet adventure drama The Bear with the actor and Alec Baldwin as characters who trek through wild terrain after a plane crash. (This film became a cult favorite when the producer Art Linson wrote humorously about the turbulent production of filming with a trained bear in his droll tinseltown memoir What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a serviceable thriller, and he earned again directing the second in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
Bond Film and Career Shifts
Yet the peak, or perhaps the low point, of Lee Tamahori’s Hollywood career was directing the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; this was the installment derided for having the poorest device in 007 history – a cloaked vehicle. What is the point such a car, audiences wondered? It was a vehicle which makes it very hard to remember where you parked it.
Subsequent Projects and Comeback
After this, Tamahori discovered renewed creativity. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred Dominic Cooper in the twin roles of the dictator's hideous son the character and also his body double, employed to protect the heir from attack or kidnapping: this was a forceful, engaging movie which sidestepped the usual double tropes. In subsequent times, Tamahori went back to the theme of indigenous traditions, making The Convert in 2023, collaborating with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter his partner. Tamahori was an outstanding director – but it remained his debut, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
