In 1994, this director Lee Tamahori made one of the biggest first films of that era, firing on all six cylinders with his gut-wrenching socially conscious melodrama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes are a blue-collar indigenous household in South Auckland: Temuera Morrison plays the boozing, fighting, bragging alpha-male benefit recipient Jake, who comes home from drinking in the pub with his pathetic sycophant mates to terrorise and abuse his wife Beth, played by the actress, and their kids. He shows no concern to the future of his older boys who have drifted into gang life and crime, as well as his gentle daughter the girl, who has talent as a storyteller. A son receives gang tattoos; the other is sent to a juvenile reformatory where he is at least educated in the traditions of indigenous heritage – the haka and the traditional weapon – and learns self-worth and pride. Meanwhile at Jake’s chaotic house, Grace is raped by Jake’s grotesque friend “Bully”; disaster follows, and Beth forcefully challenges the wretched Jake: “Our people once were warriors, but unlike you, they, they were people with mana, pride; soulful beings …”
Raw Emotion and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori unleashed with such emotional violence, and delivered powerful blows with bar sequences, domestic moments and gang initiation rituals, handling them with assurance and verve. He crafted a gutsy, heartfelt picture with a very 90s touch of edginess. It was a hit with viewers and reviewers, and – for good or ill – strongly influenced studio heads in the film industry who could see how Tamahori could bring that dynamism and talent to commercial projects.
Hollywood Career and Varied Projects
Stateside, Tamahori made 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 Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin as two men who journey through the wilderness after their plane crashes. (This film gained cult status when its producer he wrote humorously about the chaotic circumstances of filming with an animal actor in his witty Hollywood book What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a decent suspense film, and he had another payday directing the second in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Career Shifts
But the high point, or perhaps the nadir, of Lee Tamahori’s American work was directing the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; this was the Bond film mocked for having the poorest device in the series – a cloaked vehicle. What is the point such a car, audiences wondered? This car that makes it difficult to recall its parking spot.
Subsequent Projects and Comeback
After this, the director discovered renewed creativity. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured the actor in dual parts of Saddam Hussein’s brutal offspring Uday and as well as Uday’s decoy double, used to shield the heir from attack or abduction: it was a punchy, watchable film which avoided typical double tropes. And in later years, he went back to the subject of Maori culture, making The Convert in 2023, collaborating with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter his partner. Tamahori was an outstanding director – but it was his debut, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
