In 1994, this director Lee Tamahori delivered one of the biggest first films of the decade, firing on all six cylinders with the gut-wrenching social-realist melodrama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes are a working-class Maori family in South Auckland: Temuera Morrison plays the drinking, fighting, boasting alpha-male welfare claimant the father, who comes home from pub visits with his pathetic sycophant mates to terrorise and assault his wife Beth, portrayed by the actress, and their kids. He shows no concern to the fate of his older boys who have fallen into gang life and illegal activities, including his gentle daughter Grace, who has talent as a storyteller. A son gets gang tattoos; the other is sent to a juvenile reformatory where he is partly tutored in the ways of Maori culture – the war dance and the taiaha warrior spear – and gains self-worth and self-respect. Meanwhile at Jake’s chaotic house, the daughter is raped by a repulsive acquaintance “Bully”; tragedy ensues, and Beth passionately confronts the wretched Jake: “Our ancestors once were warriors, but in contrast to you, Jake, they were people with mana, pride; soulful beings …”
Emotional Violence and Confident Direction
Tamahori unleashed with all this emotional violence, and delivered powerful blows with bar sequences, the home scenes and gang initiation rituals, handling them with confidence and verve. He created a bold, sincere film with a very 90s streak of brash and trash. It succeeded with viewers and critics, and – for good or ill – strongly influenced industry executives in the film industry who recognized how Tamahori could bring this energy and flair to commercial projects.
Hollywood Career and Varied Projects
Stateside, the director directed the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who ignore protocol, and then the David Mamet-scripted survival thriller The Bear with the actor and Alec Baldwin as characters who trek through the wilderness after a plane crash. (This film gained cult status when its producer he wrote amusingly about the turbulent production of shooting with a trained bear in his witty Hollywood book What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a serviceable suspense film, and he had another payday filming the second in the XXX series XXX State of the Union.
Bond Film and Career Shifts
But the high point, or perhaps the nadir, of his American work was taking on the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; this was the installment derided for having the poorest device in 007 history – the invisible car. Why would anyone need an invisible car, viewers asked? This car that makes it difficult to remember where you parked it.
Subsequent Projects and Comeback
Following this, the director discovered renewed creativity. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured the actor in the twin roles of Saddam Hussein’s hideous son the character and as well as Uday’s decoy double, employed to shield the young tyrant-princeling from assassination or kidnapping: it was a punchy, engaging film which avoided 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. He proved to be an exceptional director – but it remained his debut, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
