In 1994, this director Lee Tamahori made one of the biggest first films of that era, operating at full capacity with the heartbreaking socially conscious drama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes represent a working-class Maori family in South Auckland: Temuera Morrison plays the boozing, fighting, boasting alpha-male benefit recipient the father, who returns from pub visits with his weak followers to intimidate and assault his wife Beth, played by Rena Owen, and their five children. He is entirely indifferent to the future of his two elder sons who have drifted into gangland culture and crime, including his gentle daughter the girl, who shows promise as a storyteller. A son gets tattoos; another is taken to a juvenile reformatory where he is partly tutored in the ways of indigenous heritage – the war dance and the traditional weapon – and learns self-worth and pride. Meanwhile at the disordered home, the daughter is raped by Jake’s grotesque friend “Bully”; tragedy ensues, and the mother passionately confronts the despicable Jake: “Our ancestors used to be fighters, but in contrast to you, Jake, they were individuals with honor, dignity; soulful beings …”
Emotional Violence and Confident Direction
Tamahori let rip with such intense drama, and delivered powerful blows with bar sequences, the home scenes and gang initiation rituals, handling them with confidence and verve. He created a gutsy, heartfelt picture with a distinctly 90s touch of edginess. It succeeded with audiences and critics, and – for good or ill – deeply impressed studio heads in the film industry who recognized how Tamahori could bring this energy and talent to mainstream genre material.
American Films and Diverse Work
Stateside, the director directed the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who ignore procedure, and then a script by Mamet adventure drama The Bear with the actor and Alec Baldwin as two men who journey through wild terrain after their plane crashes. (This moderate movie gained cult status when its producer he wrote humorously about the chaotic circumstances 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 triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
Bond Film and Professional Changes
But the high point, or maybe the low point, of Lee Tamahori’s Hollywood career was directing the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; it was the installment mocked for having the worst gadget in 007 history – the invisible car. What is the point an invisible car, audiences wondered? It was a vehicle that makes it difficult to remember where you parked it.
Later Work and Comeback
After this, Tamahori discovered some more interesting form. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred the actor in the twin roles of the dictator's hideous son Uday and also his body double, used to protect the young tyrant-princeling from assassination or abduction: it was a punchy, watchable movie which sidestepped the usual double cliches. And in later years, he went back to the subject of indigenous traditions, directing The Convert in 2023, working with writer his partner. Tamahori was an exceptional director – but it was his first film, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
