During 1994, the film-maker Lee Tamahori made one of the biggest first films of the decade, firing on all six cylinders with his heartbreaking socially conscious drama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes represent a blue-collar indigenous family in Auckland's south: Temuera Morrison plays the drinking, brawling, boasting dominant welfare claimant the father, who comes home from pub visits with his weak followers to terrorise and assault Beth, his spouse, played by Rena Owen, and their five children. He shows no concern to the future of his two elder sons who have fallen into gangland culture and crime, as well as his gentle daughter Grace, who has talent as a writer. One son receives gang tattoos; another is sent to a juvenile reformatory where he is partly tutored in the ways of indigenous heritage – the war dance 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”; disaster follows, and the mother passionately confronts the despicable Jake: “Our ancestors used to be fighters, but unlike you, Jake, they were people with mana, pride; people with spirit …”
Emotional Violence and Confident Direction
Tamahori let rip with such emotional violence, and landed sledgehammer punches with bar sequences, domestic moments and the gang ritual initiation scenes, handling them with assurance and energy. He crafted a bold, heartfelt picture with a very 90s streak of edginess. It succeeded with audiences and reviewers, and – for good or ill – deeply impressed industry executives in Hollywood who recognized how Tamahori could bring this energy and talent to commercial projects.
American Films and Diverse Work
Stateside, the director directed the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who ignore procedure, and then the David Mamet-scripted adventure drama The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and his co-star as characters who journey through wild terrain after their plane crashes. (This moderate movie gained cult status when the producer he wrote humorously about the turbulent production of shooting with a trained bear in his droll tinseltown memoir What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a decent thriller, and he had another payday directing the second in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
Bond Film and Professional Changes
Yet the peak, or perhaps the nadir, of Lee Tamahori’s Hollywood career was taking on the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; this was the Bond film mocked for having the poorest device in 007 history – the invisible car. What is the point an invisible car, audiences wondered? This car which makes it very hard to recall where you parked it.
Later Work and Comeback
After this, the director found some more interesting form. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred Dominic Cooper in the twin roles of the dictator's brutal offspring the character and as well as Uday’s decoy double, employed to shield the young tyrant-princeling from assassination or kidnapping: it was a punchy, engaging film which avoided typical doppelganger cliches. And in later years, Tamahori went back to the subject of Maori culture, directing The Convert in 2023, collaborating with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter Shane Danielsen. Tamahori was an exceptional filmmaker – but it remained his debut, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
