In 1994, the film-maker Lee Tamahori made one of the most significant first films of the decade, firing on all six cylinders with the heartbreaking social-realist melodrama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes are a working-class Maori family in South Auckland: Temuera Morrison plays the boozing, fighting, bragging dominant benefit recipient the father, who returns from pub visits with his weak followers to terrorise and abuse Beth, his spouse, played by Rena Owen, and their kids. He is entirely indifferent to the future of his two elder sons who have fallen into gang life and crime, including his gentle daughter the girl, who shows promise as a storyteller. A son receives tattoos; the other is taken to a youth detention where he is partly tutored in the traditions of indigenous heritage – the war dance and the traditional weapon – and gains dignity and pride. Meanwhile at Jake’s chaotic house, Grace is raped by Jake’s grotesque friend “Bully”; disaster follows, and the mother forcefully challenges the despicable Jake: “Our people once were warriors, but unlike you, they, they were people with mana, dignity; people with spirit …”
Raw Emotion and Confident Direction
Tamahori let rip with all this intense drama, and delivered powerful blows with the pub scenes, the home scenes and the gang ritual initiation scenes, directing them with assurance and energy. He crafted a bold, sincere picture with a very 90s streak of brash and trash. 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 Tamahori could apply that dynamism and talent to commercial projects.
American Films and Varied Projects
In America, Tamahori directed the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who care nothing for procedure, and then a script by Mamet survival thriller The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and his co-star as characters who trek through the wilderness after their plane crashes. (This moderate movie gained cult status when the producer Art Linson wrote amusingly about the chaotic circumstances of shooting with an animal actor in his witty Hollywood book What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a decent thriller, and he earned again directing the second in the XXX series XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Professional Changes
Yet the peak, or perhaps the low point, of Lee Tamahori’s American work was taking on the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; this was the Bond film derided for having the worst gadget in the series – 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.
Later Work and Return
Following this, Tamahori discovered some more interesting form. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred the actor in dual parts of the dictator's hideous son Uday and as well as Uday’s decoy double, used to shield the heir from attack or abduction: it was a forceful, watchable movie which avoided typical doppelganger cliches. In subsequent times, Tamahori returned to the subject of Maori culture, making The Convert in 2023, collaborating with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter Shane Danielsen. He proved to be an outstanding director – but it remained his debut, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
