During 1994, this film-maker Lee Tamahori delivered one of the most significant debuts of the decade, operating at full capacity with the heartbreaking socially conscious drama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes represent a blue-collar indigenous household in Auckland's south: Temuera Morrison plays the drinking, brawling, bragging dominant welfare claimant Jake, who returns from pub visits with his pathetic sycophant mates to intimidate and abuse Beth, his spouse, played by Rena Owen, and their five children. He is entirely indifferent to the future of his older boys who have fallen into gang life and illegal activities, as well as his gentle daughter Grace, who shows promise as a storyteller. One son gets tattoos; the other is sent to a juvenile reformatory where he is partly educated in the ways of Maori culture – the haka and the traditional weapon – and gains dignity and self-respect. But back at Jake’s chaotic house, Grace is raped by Jake’s grotesque friend “Uncle Bully”; tragedy ensues, and Beth passionately confronts the despicable Jake: “Our ancestors used to be fighters, but unlike you, Jake, they were individuals with honor, pride; soulful beings …”
Raw Emotion and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori unleashed with all this intense drama, and delivered powerful blows with the pub scenes, the home scenes and gang initiation rituals, directing them with confidence and energy. He crafted a gutsy, heartfelt picture with a distinctly 90s touch of brash and trash. It succeeded with audiences and critics, and – whether positive or negative – deeply impressed studio heads in Hollywood who could see how he could bring this energy and flair to mainstream genre material.
American Films and Diverse Work
Stateside, Tamahori directed the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who care nothing for procedure, and then a script by Mamet survival thriller The Bear with the actor and Alec Baldwin as two men who journey through the wilderness after their plane crashes. (This film became a cult favorite when the producer Art Linson wrote amusingly about the turbulent production of filming with an animal actor in his droll tinseltown memoir What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a serviceable suspense film, and he had another payday filming the second in the XXX series XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Professional Changes
But the high point, or maybe the low point, of Lee Tamahori’s Hollywood career was directing the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; it was the installment derided for having the worst gadget in 007 history – the invisible car. What is the point such a car, audiences wondered? This car that makes it difficult to recall its parking spot.
Subsequent Projects and Return
After this, Tamahori found renewed creativity. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred Dominic Cooper in the twin roles of Saddam Hussein’s brutal offspring Uday and also Uday’s decoy double, used to shield the young tyrant-princeling from assassination or abduction: it was a forceful, watchable movie which sidestepped typical doppelganger cliches. And in later years, he went back to the theme of indigenous traditions, directing The Convert in 2023, collaborating with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter Shane Danielsen. Tamahori was an exceptional director – but it remained his debut, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
