In 1994, this director Lee Tamahori delivered one of the most significant first films of that era, operating at full capacity with the gut-wrenching socially conscious drama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes represent a working-class Maori family in South Auckland: Temuera Morrison plays the boozing, fighting, boasting dominant benefit recipient Jake, who returns from pub visits with his weak followers to intimidate and assault his wife Beth, played by Rena Owen, and their kids. He is entirely indifferent to the fate of his two elder sons who have fallen into gangland culture and illegal activities, including his sensitive daughter the girl, who has talent as a writer. One son gets tattoos; the other is sent to a youth detention where he is at least educated in the ways of indigenous heritage – the war dance and the taiaha warrior spear – and learns self-worth and pride. Meanwhile at the disordered home, the daughter is raped by Jake’s grotesque friend “Uncle Bully”; tragedy ensues, and the mother passionately confronts the despicable Jake: “Our people used to be fighters, but unlike you, Jake, they were people with mana, dignity; people with spirit …”
Emotional Violence and Confident Direction
Tamahori let rip with all this emotional violence, and landed sledgehammer punches with the pub scenes, domestic moments and gang initiation rituals, handling them with assurance and verve. He crafted a bold, heartfelt picture with a distinctly 90s touch of edginess. It was a hit with audiences and reviewers, and – whether positive or negative – strongly influenced industry executives in the film industry who could see how he could apply this energy and talent to mainstream genre material.
Hollywood Career and Varied Projects
In America, Tamahori made the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who ignore protocol, and then a script by Mamet adventure drama The Bear with the actor and his co-star as characters who trek through wild terrain after their plane crashes. (This film became a cult favorite when the producer Art Linson wrote amusingly about the turbulent production of filming with a trained bear in his witty Hollywood book What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a serviceable thriller, and he had another payday filming the sequel in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
Bond Film and Career Shifts
Yet the peak, or maybe the nadir, of Lee Tamahori’s Hollywood career was taking on the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; this was the installment mocked for having the worst gadget in 007 history – the invisible car. Why would anyone need such a car, viewers asked? This car that makes it difficult to recall where you parked it.
Later Work and Comeback
Following this, Tamahori discovered some more interesting form. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred the actor in dual parts of Saddam Hussein’s brutal offspring the character and as well as Uday’s decoy double, used to shield the young tyrant-princeling from attack or abduction: this was a forceful, watchable movie which sidestepped the usual double tropes. And in later years, he returned to the subject of Maori culture, directing The Convert in 2023, working 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 greatest work.
