In 1994, this film-maker Lee Tamahori delivered one of the most significant debuts of that era, firing on all six cylinders with his gut-wrenching socially conscious drama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes are a working-class Maori household in South Auckland: Temuera Morrison plays the drinking, brawling, bragging dominant welfare claimant Jake, who returns from drinking in the pub with his pathetic sycophant mates to terrorise and assault his wife Beth, played by the actress, and their five children. He is entirely indifferent to the fate of his older boys who have fallen into gang life and illegal activities, including his gentle daughter the girl, who shows promise as a writer. One son gets gang tattoos; another is sent to a youth detention where he is at least educated in the traditions of Maori culture – the war dance and the traditional weapon – and learns self-worth and pride. Meanwhile at Jake’s chaotic house, the daughter is raped by Jake’s grotesque friend “Bully”; tragedy ensues, and Beth forcefully challenges the despicable Jake: “Our ancestors once were warriors, but unlike you, Jake, they were individuals with honor, pride; people with spirit …”
Raw Emotion and Confident Direction
Tamahori let rip with all this emotional violence, and landed sledgehammer punches with bar sequences, domestic moments and gang initiation rituals, handling them with confidence and verve. He created a bold, heartfelt film with a very 90s touch of brash and trash. It was a hit with viewers and reviewers, and – whether positive or negative – strongly influenced studio heads in Hollywood who recognized how Tamahori could apply that dynamism and talent to mainstream genre material.
Hollywood Career and Varied Projects
In America, the director made the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who ignore protocol, and then a script by Mamet survival thriller The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and his co-star as characters who trek through the wilderness after a plane crash. (This moderate movie became a cult favorite when the producer Art Linson wrote humorously about the turbulent production of shooting with a trained bear in his witty Hollywood book What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a decent suspense film, and he had another payday directing the sequel in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Professional Changes
Yet the peak, or maybe the nadir, of Lee Tamahori’s American work was directing the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; it was the installment mocked for having the worst gadget in the series – a cloaked vehicle. Why would anyone need an invisible car, audiences wondered? This car which makes it very hard to remember where you parked it.
Subsequent Projects and Return
After this, the director discovered some more interesting form. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured Dominic Cooper in dual parts of the dictator's hideous son Uday and also his body double, employed to shield the young tyrant-princeling from assassination or kidnapping: it was a forceful, engaging film which avoided the usual double tropes. In subsequent times, he returned to the subject of Maori culture, directing The Convert in 2023, collaborating with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter his partner. He proved to be an outstanding filmmaker – but it remained his first film, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
