In 1994, the director Lee Tamahori made one of the most significant first films of the decade, firing on all six cylinders with the gut-wrenching social-realist drama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes represent a blue-collar Maori family in Auckland's south: Temuera Morrison plays the boozing, fighting, bragging dominant welfare claimant Jake, who comes home from drinking in the pub with his weak followers to intimidate and assault Beth, his spouse, played by the actress, and their kids. He shows no concern to the fate of his two elder sons who have fallen into gang life and illegal activities, as well as his sensitive daughter Grace, who shows promise as a storyteller. A son gets tattoos; another is sent to a juvenile reformatory where he is at least educated in the traditions of Maori culture – the war dance and the traditional weapon – and learns self-worth and self-respect. But back at the disordered home, the daughter is raped by Jake’s grotesque friend “Bully”; disaster follows, and the mother passionately confronts the despicable Jake: “Our people used to be fighters, but unlike you, they, they were people with mana, pride; soulful beings …”
Emotional Violence and Confident Direction
Tamahori let rip with all this emotional violence, and landed sledgehammer punches with bar sequences, the home scenes and the gang ritual initiation scenes, directing them with confidence and energy. He crafted a bold, sincere film with a distinctly 90s touch of edginess. It was a hit with audiences and critics, and – for good or ill – strongly influenced industry executives in Hollywood who could see how Tamahori could apply that dynamism and flair to mainstream genre material.
Hollywood Career and Diverse Work
Stateside, Tamahori directed 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 the actor and his co-star as two men who journey through wild terrain after a plane crash. (This film gained cult status when the producer Art Linson wrote humorously about the turbulent production of shooting with an animal actor in his witty Hollywood book What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a serviceable suspense film, and he had another payday directing the second in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Professional Changes
But the high point, or perhaps the low point, of his American work was directing the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; this was the Bond film mocked for having the worst gadget in 007 history – the invisible car. Why would anyone need an invisible car, audiences wondered? It was a vehicle that makes it difficult to recall its parking spot.
Later Work and Return
Following this, the director found some more interesting form. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured the actor in dual parts of Saddam Hussein’s brutal offspring Uday and as well as Uday’s decoy double, used to protect the young tyrant-princeling from attack or abduction: this was a forceful, engaging movie which sidestepped the usual doppelganger tropes. And in later years, Tamahori went back to the subject of Maori culture, directing The Convert in 2023, collaborating with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter Shane Danielsen. He proved to be an exceptional filmmaker – but it was his first film, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
