During 1994, this director Lee Tamahori delivered one of the biggest first films of that era, firing on all six cylinders with his heartbreaking social-realist melodrama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes represent a working-class Maori family in South Auckland: Temuera Morrison is the boozing, fighting, bragging alpha-male benefit recipient the father, who comes home from pub visits with his weak followers to intimidate and abuse his wife Beth, played by Rena Owen, and their kids. He shows no concern to the future of his older boys who have drifted into gangland culture and illegal activities, including his gentle daughter the girl, who shows promise as a storyteller. One son receives gang tattoos; another is taken to a youth detention where he is partly educated in the ways of indigenous heritage – the haka and the traditional weapon – and learns dignity and pride. Meanwhile at Jake’s chaotic house, Grace is raped by a repulsive acquaintance “Uncle Bully”; tragedy ensues, and Beth forcefully challenges the wretched Jake: “Our people once were warriors, but in contrast to you, they, they were individuals with honor, pride; soulful beings …”
Raw Emotion and Confident Direction
Tamahori unleashed with such emotional violence, 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 film with a very 90s touch of brash and trash. It succeeded with audiences and critics, and – for good or ill – strongly influenced industry executives in Hollywood who could see how Tamahori could apply that dynamism and talent to mainstream genre material.
American Films and Diverse Work
Stateside, Tamahori directed the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who ignore protocol, and then a script by Mamet adventure drama The Bear with the actor and Alec Baldwin as two men who trek through wild terrain after their plane crashes. (This moderate movie became a cult favorite when the producer Art Linson wrote amusingly about the turbulent production of shooting with an animal actor in his witty Hollywood book What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a serviceable suspense film, and he earned again filming the second in the XXX series XXX State of the Union.
Bond Film and Career Shifts
Yet the peak, or maybe the nadir, of Lee Tamahori’s American work was taking on the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; this was the Bond film derided for having the poorest device in 007 history – the invisible car. Why would anyone need such a car, audiences wondered? This car that makes it difficult to remember where you parked it.
Later Work and Comeback
Following this, the director found renewed creativity. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred the actor in the twin roles of Saddam Hussein’s brutal offspring Uday and as well as Uday’s decoy double, used to protect the young tyrant-princeling from assassination or kidnapping: this was a punchy, watchable movie which avoided the usual doppelganger tropes. In subsequent times, he went back to the subject of Maori culture, directing The Convert in 2023, working with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter his partner. He proved to be an outstanding filmmaker – but it was his debut, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
