During 1994, the film-maker Lee Tamahori made one of the biggest debuts of that era, firing on all six cylinders with his gut-wrenching socially conscious melodrama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes are a blue-collar Maori family in South Auckland: Temuera Morrison is the boozing, fighting, boasting alpha-male benefit recipient Jake, who returns from drinking in the pub with his weak followers to intimidate and abuse his wife Beth, played by Rena Owen, and their kids. He is entirely indifferent to the future of his older boys who have fallen into gang life and crime, including his gentle daughter the girl, who shows promise as a storyteller. A son gets tattoos; the other is taken to a youth detention where he is partly tutored in the ways of Maori culture – the haka and the traditional weapon – and learns self-worth and pride. But back at the disordered home, Grace is assaulted by a repulsive acquaintance “Uncle Bully”; tragedy ensues, and the mother forcefully challenges the wretched Jake: “Our people once were warriors, but unlike you, they, they were people with mana, dignity; soulful beings …”
Emotional Violence and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori let rip with such emotional violence, and landed sledgehammer punches with the pub scenes, domestic moments and gang initiation rituals, handling them with confidence and verve. He created a gutsy, heartfelt film with a distinctly 90s streak of brash and trash. It succeeded with viewers and critics, and – for good or ill – deeply impressed industry executives in Hollywood who recognized how he could bring that dynamism and talent to commercial projects.
Hollywood Career and Varied Projects
In America, the director made the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who care nothing for protocol, and then a script by Mamet adventure drama The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and his co-star as characters who journey through the wilderness after a plane crash. (This moderate movie became a cult favorite when its producer Art Linson 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 serviceable suspense film, and he earned again directing the sequel in the XXX series XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Professional Changes
Yet the peak, or perhaps the nadir, of Lee Tamahori’s Hollywood career was directing the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; this was the Bond film mocked for having the worst gadget in 007 history – a cloaked vehicle. Why would anyone need an invisible car, audiences wondered? This car that makes it difficult to recall where you parked it.
Later Work and Return
After this, Tamahori found renewed creativity. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured the actor in dual parts of the dictator's brutal offspring the character and also Uday’s decoy double, used to shield the young tyrant-princeling from assassination or abduction: this was a forceful, engaging movie which avoided typical double tropes. In subsequent times, he went back to the subject of indigenous traditions, making The Convert in 2023, collaborating with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter his partner. Tamahori was an outstanding filmmaker – but it remained his debut, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
