In 1994, the director Lee Tamahori made one of the most significant first films of that era, firing on all six cylinders with his gut-wrenching social-realist drama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes represent a working-class Maori family in South Auckland: Temuera Morrison plays the boozing, brawling, boasting dominant welfare claimant the father, who comes home from pub visits with his weak followers to terrorise and abuse Beth, his spouse, played by Rena Owen, and their kids. He shows no concern to the fate of his older boys who have drifted into gangland culture and crime, including his gentle daughter the girl, who shows promise as a writer. A son gets gang tattoos; another is sent to a juvenile reformatory where he is at least educated in the traditions of Maori culture – the haka and the taiaha warrior spear – and learns dignity and self-respect. Meanwhile at the disordered home, Grace is raped by Jake’s grotesque friend “Bully”; tragedy ensues, and Beth passionately confronts the despicable Jake: “Our people once were warriors, but unlike you, Jake, they were individuals with honor, pride; people with spirit …”
Raw Emotion and Confident Direction
Tamahori unleashed with such emotional violence, and delivered powerful blows with bar sequences, domestic moments and the gang ritual initiation scenes, handling them with confidence and verve. He created a bold, heartfelt picture with a distinctly 90s touch of brash and trash. It succeeded with viewers and critics, and – for good or ill – strongly influenced industry executives in the film industry who recognized how Tamahori could apply that dynamism and talent to mainstream genre material.
Hollywood Career and Diverse Work
In America, the director made the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who care nothing for protocol, and then the David Mamet-scripted adventure drama The Bear with the actor and his co-star as characters who journey through the wilderness after a plane crash. (This film gained cult status when the producer Art Linson wrote humorously about the chaotic circumstances of shooting with a trained bear in his droll tinseltown memoir What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a serviceable suspense film, and he earned again filming the sequel in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
Bond Film and Career Shifts
But the high point, or perhaps the nadir, of Lee Tamahori’s 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 the series – the invisible car. What is the point an invisible car, viewers asked? It was a vehicle that makes it difficult to recall where you parked it.
Subsequent Projects and Return
After this, Tamahori discovered renewed creativity. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured Dominic Cooper in dual parts of Saddam Hussein’s brutal offspring the character and as well as Uday’s decoy double, used to protect the young tyrant-princeling from assassination or kidnapping: this was a forceful, engaging film which avoided the usual doppelganger tropes. And in later years, he went back to the theme of indigenous traditions, making The Convert in 2023, working with writer his partner. Tamahori was an outstanding director – but it remained his first film, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
