During 1994, this film-maker Lee Tamahori made one of the biggest first films of the decade, operating at full capacity with the heartbreaking socially conscious drama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes are a working-class Maori household in Auckland's south: Temuera Morrison plays the drinking, fighting, boasting dominant welfare claimant the father, who returns from pub visits with his weak followers to terrorise and abuse his wife Beth, played by the actress, and their five children. He shows no concern to the fate of his older boys who have drifted into gang life and illegal activities, including his sensitive daughter the girl, who has talent as a storyteller. One son gets tattoos; another is sent to a youth detention where he is partly educated in the traditions of Maori culture – the war dance and the traditional weapon – and learns dignity and self-respect. But back at Jake’s chaotic house, Grace is assaulted by Jake’s grotesque friend “Bully”; tragedy ensues, and Beth passionately confronts the despicable Jake: “Our people once were warriors, but unlike you, Jake, they were people with mana, pride; people with spirit …”
Raw Emotion and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori unleashed with all this intense drama, and delivered powerful blows with bar sequences, the home scenes and the gang ritual initiation scenes, directing them with confidence and energy. He crafted a bold, heartfelt picture with a very 90s streak of edginess. It was a hit with viewers and critics, and – whether positive or negative – deeply impressed studio heads in the film industry who could see how he could apply this energy and talent to mainstream genre material.
Hollywood Career and Varied Projects
Stateside, Tamahori directed the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who care nothing for protocol, and then the David Mamet-scripted survival thriller The Bear with the actor and Alec Baldwin as characters who journey through the wilderness after a plane crash. (This film gained cult status when the producer he wrote amusingly about the turbulent production of shooting with a trained bear in his witty Hollywood book What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a serviceable suspense film, and he earned again filming the sequel in the XXX series XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Career Shifts
Yet the peak, or perhaps the nadir, of his American work 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 – the invisible car. What is the point an invisible car, audiences wondered? This car that makes it difficult to recall where you parked it.
Later Work and Return
After this, the director found renewed creativity. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured Dominic Cooper in the twin roles of Saddam Hussein’s hideous son Uday and as well as his body double, employed to protect the heir from assassination or abduction: it was a punchy, engaging film which avoided the usual doppelganger cliches. And in later years, Tamahori went back to the theme of indigenous traditions, directing The Convert in 2023, collaborating with writer Shane Danielsen. Tamahori was an exceptional filmmaker – but it was his first film, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
