During 1994, the film-maker Lee Tamahori made one of the biggest first films of that era, operating at full capacity with his heartbreaking socially conscious melodrama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes are a blue-collar indigenous family in South Auckland: Temuera Morrison plays the boozing, brawling, boasting dominant benefit recipient the father, who returns from pub visits with his pathetic sycophant mates to terrorise and abuse his wife Beth, played by Rena Owen, and their five children. He is entirely indifferent to the future of his two elder sons who have fallen into gangland culture and crime, as well as his sensitive daughter the girl, who has talent as a storyteller. One son receives gang tattoos; the other is sent to a juvenile reformatory where he is partly tutored in the ways of Maori culture – the haka and the taiaha warrior spear – and learns dignity and pride. But back at the disordered home, the daughter is raped by Jake’s grotesque friend “Bully”; tragedy ensues, and the mother forcefully challenges the despicable Jake: “Our ancestors once were warriors, but in contrast to you, Jake, they were individuals with honor, pride; soulful beings …”
Emotional Violence and Confident Direction
Tamahori unleashed with such intense drama, and landed sledgehammer punches with the pub scenes, domestic moments and gang initiation rituals, handling them with confidence and energy. He created a gutsy, heartfelt film with a very 90s streak of brash and trash. It was a hit with audiences and reviewers, and – for good or ill – deeply impressed studio heads in Hollywood who recognized how he could apply that dynamism and flair to mainstream genre material.
Hollywood Career and Diverse Work
Stateside, Tamahori made the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who ignore protocol, and then a script by Mamet survival thriller The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and his co-star as characters who journey through wild terrain after a plane crash. (This film became a cult favorite when its producer Art Linson wrote humorously about the turbulent production of filming with an animal actor in his droll tinseltown memoir What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a decent thriller, and he earned again directing the sequel in the XXX series XXX State of the Union.
Bond Film and Career Shifts
But the high point, or maybe the nadir, of his Hollywood career was directing the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; it was the installment derided for having the worst gadget in 007 history – the invisible car. Why would anyone need such a car, audiences wondered? It was a vehicle that makes it difficult to remember its parking spot.
Subsequent Projects and Comeback
After this, the director found renewed creativity. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured Dominic Cooper in dual parts of Saddam Hussein’s hideous son the character and also Uday’s decoy double, used to shield the heir from assassination or kidnapping: it was a forceful, engaging film which avoided typical double tropes. In subsequent times, he went back to the theme of Maori culture, directing The Convert in 2023, working with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter his partner. Tamahori was an exceptional director – but it was his first film, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
