In 1994, this film-maker Lee Tamahori delivered one of the biggest first films of the decade, firing on all six cylinders with the gut-wrenching socially conscious drama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes are a working-class Maori household in South Auckland: Temuera Morrison plays the drinking, fighting, bragging dominant welfare claimant the father, who returns from pub visits with his weak followers to intimidate and abuse Beth, his spouse, played by the actress, and their kids. He is entirely indifferent to the future of his older boys who have fallen into gangland culture and crime, including his sensitive daughter Grace, who shows promise as a storyteller. A son gets tattoos; another is sent to a juvenile reformatory where he is at least educated in the traditions of Maori culture – the haka and the traditional weapon – and gains self-worth and pride. Meanwhile at the disordered home, Grace is raped by a repulsive acquaintance “Uncle Bully”; tragedy ensues, and the mother forcefully challenges the despicable Jake: “Our people once were warriors, but unlike you, they, they were people with mana, pride; people with spirit …”
Emotional Violence and Confident Direction
Tamahori let rip with such emotional violence, and delivered powerful blows with bar sequences, the home scenes and gang initiation rituals, handling them with assurance and verve. He crafted a gutsy, sincere film with a distinctly 90s streak of edginess. It was a hit with audiences and reviewers, and – for good or ill – strongly influenced studio heads in the film industry who recognized how he could bring this energy and talent to mainstream genre material.
American Films and Diverse Work
Stateside, the director directed the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who ignore procedure, and then the David Mamet-scripted adventure drama The Bear with the actor and his co-star as two men who trek through the wilderness after a plane crash. (This film gained cult status when the producer Art Linson wrote humorously about the chaotic circumstances of filming with a trained bear in his droll tinseltown memoir What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a serviceable thriller, and he had another payday filming the second in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
Bond Film and Career Shifts
But the high point, or perhaps the low point, of Lee Tamahori’s Hollywood career was taking on the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; it was the installment derided for having the worst gadget in 007 history – a cloaked vehicle. Why would anyone need an invisible car, audiences wondered? It was a vehicle that makes it difficult to recall its parking spot.
Subsequent Projects and Return
Following this, the director found some more interesting form. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred Dominic Cooper in the twin roles of the dictator's brutal offspring the character and as well as his body double, employed to protect the heir from assassination or abduction: this was a punchy, engaging movie which avoided typical doppelganger cliches. And in later years, he went back to the theme of Maori culture, directing The Convert in 2023, working with writer Shane Danielsen. Tamahori was an exceptional filmmaker – but it was his first film, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
