During 1994, the film-maker Lee Tamahori delivered one of the most significant first films of that era, firing on all six cylinders with the heartbreaking social-realist melodrama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes are a working-class indigenous household in Auckland's south: Temuera Morrison is the drinking, brawling, boasting dominant welfare claimant Jake, who comes home from drinking in the pub with his weak followers to intimidate and assault Beth, his spouse, played by Rena Owen, and their five children. He is entirely indifferent to the fate of his two elder sons who have fallen into gang life and illegal activities, including his gentle daughter the girl, who shows promise as a storyteller. A son receives gang tattoos; another is taken to a youth detention where he is partly tutored in the traditions of Maori culture – the haka and the traditional weapon – and gains self-worth and self-respect. But back at the disordered home, the daughter is raped by Jake’s grotesque friend “Bully”; tragedy ensues, and Beth forcefully challenges the wretched Jake: “Our ancestors once were warriors, but in contrast to you, Jake, they were individuals with honor, dignity; people with spirit …”
Raw Emotion and Confident Direction
Tamahori let rip with such intense drama, and landed sledgehammer punches with bar sequences, domestic moments and the gang ritual initiation scenes, handling them with assurance and energy. He created a gutsy, sincere picture with a very 90s streak of edginess. It succeeded with viewers and critics, and – for good or ill – deeply impressed studio heads in Hollywood who could see how Tamahori could apply this energy and flair to commercial projects.
American Films and Diverse Work
Stateside, the director made the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who ignore protocol, and then the David Mamet-scripted adventure drama The Bear with Anthony Hopkins 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 he wrote humorously about the turbulent production of shooting with an animal actor in his witty Hollywood book What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a decent thriller, and he had another payday directing the sequel in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Career Shifts
Yet the peak, or perhaps the nadir, of his Hollywood career was directing the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; it was the Bond film mocked for having the worst gadget in 007 history – a cloaked vehicle. What is the point an invisible car, viewers asked? It was a vehicle that makes it difficult to recall where you parked it.
Later Work and Return
Following this, the director discovered some more interesting form. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred Dominic Cooper in dual parts of Saddam Hussein’s brutal offspring Uday and also his body double, employed to shield the heir from assassination or abduction: this was a forceful, engaging movie which avoided typical double cliches. In subsequent times, he went back to the theme of Maori culture, directing The Convert in 2023, working with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter his partner. Tamahori was an outstanding filmmaker – but it remained his first film, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
