In 1994, the director Lee Tamahori delivered one of the biggest first films of that era, firing on all six cylinders with the gut-wrenching socially conscious drama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes are a working-class Maori family in South Auckland: Temuera Morrison plays the drinking, brawling, bragging dominant benefit recipient the father, who returns from drinking in the pub with his weak followers to terrorise and assault Beth, his spouse, portrayed by Rena Owen, and their five children. He is entirely indifferent to the future of his two elder sons who have fallen into gang life and crime, as well as his sensitive daughter the girl, who shows promise as a writer. A son gets gang tattoos; another is taken to a youth detention where he is partly tutored in the ways of Maori culture – the war dance and the traditional weapon – and gains dignity and self-respect. Meanwhile at Jake’s chaotic house, the daughter is raped by a repulsive acquaintance “Uncle Bully”; tragedy ensues, and Beth passionately confronts the despicable Jake: “Our people used to be fighters, but unlike you, they, they were people with mana, dignity; soulful beings …”
Raw Emotion and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori let rip with all this intense drama, and delivered powerful blows with the pub scenes, the home scenes and gang initiation rituals, directing them with confidence and energy. He crafted a bold, sincere film with a distinctly 90s streak of edginess. It was a hit with viewers and critics, and – for good or ill – strongly influenced studio heads in the film industry who recognized how he could apply that dynamism and talent to mainstream genre material.
Hollywood Career and Diverse Work
In America, the director directed the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who care nothing for protocol, and then a script by Mamet survival thriller The Bear with the actor and Alec Baldwin as two men who trek through the wilderness after a plane crash. (This film became a cult favorite when its producer he wrote amusingly about the turbulent production of shooting with a trained bear in his droll tinseltown memoir What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a serviceable thriller, and he had another payday filming the second in the XXX series XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Career Shifts
Yet the peak, or perhaps the low point, of his American work was directing the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; this was the installment mocked for having the worst gadget in 007 history – the invisible car. Why would anyone need such a car, viewers asked? It was a vehicle which makes it very hard to remember where you parked it.
Subsequent Projects and Return
Following this, Tamahori found some more interesting form. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured Dominic Cooper in the twin roles of the dictator's brutal offspring Uday and also Uday’s decoy double, used to protect the heir from assassination or kidnapping: it was a forceful, watchable film which avoided the usual doppelganger tropes. And in later years, Tamahori returned to the subject of indigenous traditions, making The Convert in 2023, collaborating with writer his partner. He proved to be an exceptional director – but it remained his debut, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
