During 1994, this film-maker Lee Tamahori delivered one of the most significant first films of that era, operating at full capacity with the gut-wrenching socially conscious melodrama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes are a blue-collar Maori family in Auckland's south: Temuera Morrison plays the drinking, brawling, bragging dominant welfare claimant the father, who comes home from pub visits with his pathetic sycophant mates to intimidate and abuse Beth, his spouse, portrayed by the actress, and their kids. 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 has talent as a writer. A son receives gang tattoos; another is sent to a juvenile reformatory where he is partly educated in the ways of indigenous heritage – the war dance and the traditional weapon – and gains dignity and pride. Meanwhile at the disordered home, Grace is raped by Jake’s grotesque friend “Bully”; disaster follows, and the mother forcefully challenges the despicable Jake: “Our ancestors once were warriors, but unlike you, Jake, they were people with mana, dignity; people with spirit …”
Raw Emotion and Confident Direction
Tamahori unleashed with such emotional violence, and delivered powerful blows with the pub scenes, domestic moments and the gang ritual initiation scenes, handling them with assurance and energy. He crafted a bold, heartfelt picture with a distinctly 90s streak of edginess. It succeeded with viewers and reviewers, and – for good or ill – deeply impressed studio heads in Hollywood who could see how Tamahori could bring this energy and flair to commercial projects.
Hollywood Career and Diverse Work
Stateside, the director made the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who care nothing for procedure, and then a script by Mamet survival thriller The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin as two men who journey through wild terrain after their plane crashes. (This film became a cult favorite when the producer he wrote amusingly 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 suspense film, and he earned again filming the sequel in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
Bond Film and Professional Changes
Yet the peak, or perhaps the nadir, of Lee Tamahori’s Hollywood career was taking on the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; this was the installment mocked for having the worst gadget in 007 history – the invisible car. Why would anyone need such a car, audiences wondered? It was a vehicle that makes it difficult to recall where you parked it.
Subsequent Projects and Comeback
Following this, the director discovered some more interesting form. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured the actor in dual parts of Saddam Hussein’s brutal offspring Uday and also Uday’s decoy double, employed to shield the heir from attack or abduction: this was a punchy, engaging movie which sidestepped typical doppelganger tropes. And in later years, he returned to the subject of indigenous traditions, directing The Convert in 2023, collaborating with writer Shane Danielsen. Tamahori was an outstanding director – but it was his first film, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
