During 1994, the director Lee Tamahori delivered one of the most significant first films of the decade, firing on all six cylinders with the heartbreaking socially conscious drama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes represent a working-class Maori family in South Auckland: Temuera Morrison plays the drinking, fighting, bragging alpha-male welfare claimant Jake, who comes home from drinking in the pub with his pathetic sycophant mates to intimidate and abuse Beth, his spouse, played by the actress, and their kids. He shows no concern to the future of his older boys who have fallen into gangland culture and illegal activities, as well as his gentle daughter Grace, who shows promise as a storyteller. A son receives tattoos; another is taken to a youth detention where he is partly tutored in the ways of Maori culture – the war dance and the taiaha warrior spear – and learns dignity and pride. But back at the disordered home, Grace is assaulted by Jake’s grotesque friend “Uncle Bully”; tragedy ensues, and the mother forcefully challenges the despicable Jake: “Our people once were warriors, but in contrast to you, Jake, they were individuals with honor, pride; soulful beings …”
Raw Emotion and Confident Direction
Tamahori let rip with such intense drama, and delivered powerful blows with the pub scenes, the home scenes and the gang ritual initiation scenes, directing them with confidence and verve. He created a bold, heartfelt picture with a distinctly 90s streak of edginess. It was a hit with audiences and reviewers, and – whether positive or negative – strongly influenced industry executives in the film industry who recognized how Tamahori could apply that dynamism and talent to mainstream genre material.
American Films and Varied Projects
In America, Tamahori directed the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who ignore procedure, and then the David Mamet-scripted survival thriller The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and his co-star as two men who trek through wild terrain after their plane crashes. (This moderate movie gained cult status when its producer Art Linson wrote humorously about the chaotic circumstances of shooting with a trained bear in his witty Hollywood book What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a serviceable thriller, and he had another payday filming the sequel in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Career Shifts
But the high point, or maybe the nadir, of Lee Tamahori’s Hollywood career was directing the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; it was the Bond film mocked for having the worst gadget in 007 history – a cloaked vehicle. What is the point such a car, audiences wondered? It was a vehicle that makes it difficult to remember its parking spot.
Later Work and Comeback
After this, Tamahori found renewed creativity. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred Dominic Cooper in dual parts of Saddam Hussein’s brutal offspring the character and also his body double, employed to shield the heir from attack or abduction: it was a punchy, watchable film which avoided the usual double cliches. And in later years, Tamahori returned to the subject of indigenous traditions, directing The Convert in 2023, collaborating with writer his partner. Tamahori was an outstanding filmmaker – but it remained his debut, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
