During 1994, the director Lee Tamahori delivered one of the most significant debuts of that era, firing on all six cylinders with his gut-wrenching social-realist drama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes represent a working-class indigenous household in Auckland's south: Temuera Morrison plays the drinking, brawling, bragging alpha-male welfare claimant Jake, who returns from pub visits with his weak followers to intimidate and abuse Beth, his spouse, played by the actress, and their kids. He shows no concern to the future of his older boys who have fallen into gangland culture and illegal activities, including his sensitive daughter the girl, who shows promise as a writer. One son receives tattoos; the other is sent to a juvenile reformatory where he is partly educated in the traditions of Maori culture – the haka and the traditional weapon – and learns dignity and pride. But back at Jake’s chaotic house, the daughter is raped by a repulsive acquaintance “Bully”; disaster follows, and Beth passionately confronts the despicable Jake: “Our ancestors used to be fighters, but unlike you, they, they were people with mana, pride; soulful beings …”
Emotional Violence and Confident Direction
Tamahori unleashed with all this emotional violence, and landed sledgehammer punches with bar sequences, domestic moments and the gang ritual initiation scenes, handling them with confidence and energy. He created a bold, heartfelt picture with a distinctly 90s touch of edginess. It was a hit with viewers and reviewers, and – for good or ill – strongly influenced studio heads in the film industry who could see how he could bring this energy and talent to commercial projects.
Hollywood Career and Varied Projects
In America, the director made the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who care nothing for procedure, and then the David Mamet-scripted survival thriller The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin as characters who journey through the wilderness after a plane crash. (This moderate movie gained cult status when its producer Art Linson wrote amusingly about the turbulent production of filming with an animal actor in his droll tinseltown memoir What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a decent thriller, and he had another payday filming the sequel in the XXX series XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Career Shifts
But the high point, or perhaps the nadir, of Lee Tamahori’s American work was directing the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; this was the Bond film mocked for having the poorest device in the series – a cloaked vehicle. Why would anyone need an invisible car, audiences wondered? This car which makes it very hard to recall its parking spot.
Subsequent Projects and Return
After this, Tamahori discovered some more interesting form. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred the actor in the twin roles of the dictator's hideous son the character and also Uday’s decoy double, employed to protect the heir from attack or kidnapping: this was a forceful, watchable movie which avoided typical doppelganger cliches. And in later years, he went back to the subject of Maori culture, directing The Convert in 2023, working with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter his partner. Tamahori was an outstanding director – but it remained his first film, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
