In 1994, this film-maker Lee Tamahori delivered one of the most significant first films of that era, firing on all six cylinders with the gut-wrenching social-realist drama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes are a blue-collar indigenous family in Auckland's south: Temuera Morrison plays the boozing, fighting, boasting dominant benefit recipient Jake, who comes home from pub visits with his weak followers to intimidate and assault his wife Beth, portrayed by Rena Owen, and their five children. He shows no concern to the fate of his two elder sons who have fallen into gang life and crime, including his sensitive daughter the girl, who shows promise as a writer. One son receives tattoos; the other is taken to a juvenile reformatory where he is at least educated in the ways of Maori culture – the haka and the traditional weapon – and learns dignity and pride. Meanwhile at the disordered home, Grace is raped by a repulsive acquaintance “Uncle Bully”; disaster follows, and the mother passionately confronts the despicable Jake: “Our ancestors once were warriors, but in contrast to you, they, they were people with mana, dignity; soulful beings …”
Raw Emotion and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori unleashed with all this intense drama, and delivered powerful blows with the pub scenes, the home scenes and gang initiation rituals, handling them with assurance and verve. He crafted a gutsy, heartfelt picture with a distinctly 90s streak of brash and trash. It succeeded with viewers and critics, and – whether positive or negative – strongly influenced studio heads in the film industry who recognized how he could bring this energy and talent to commercial projects.
American Films and Varied Projects
In America, 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 he wrote amusingly about the turbulent production of filming with a trained bear in his droll tinseltown memoir 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.
Bond Film and Career Shifts
But the high point, or maybe the low point, of Lee Tamahori’s Hollywood career was taking on the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; this was the installment derided for having the worst gadget in the series – the invisible car. What is the point an invisible car, audiences wondered? It was a vehicle which makes it very hard to recall where you parked it.
Subsequent Projects and Comeback
Following this, Tamahori found some more interesting form. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured the actor in dual parts of the dictator's hideous son the character and also his body double, used to protect the young tyrant-princeling from assassination or abduction: this was a punchy, engaging film which avoided typical doppelganger tropes. In subsequent times, he went back to the theme of Maori culture, directing The Convert in 2023, working with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter Shane Danielsen. Tamahori was an outstanding director – but it was his first film, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
