In 1994, this director 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 represent a working-class indigenous household in Auckland's south: Temuera Morrison is the drinking, brawling, boasting dominant welfare claimant Jake, who comes home from drinking in the pub with his pathetic sycophant mates to terrorise and assault Beth, his spouse, played by the actress, and their five children. He shows no concern to the fate of his older boys who have drifted into gangland culture and illegal activities, as well as his sensitive daughter Grace, who shows promise as a writer. One son gets tattoos; the other is sent to a youth detention where he is partly tutored in the traditions of indigenous heritage – the war dance and the taiaha warrior spear – and gains self-worth and pride. Meanwhile at Jake’s chaotic house, Grace is raped by a repulsive acquaintance “Bully”; disaster follows, and Beth forcefully challenges the despicable Jake: “Our ancestors used to be fighters, but unlike you, they, they were people with mana, dignity; soulful beings …”
Raw Emotion and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori unleashed with all this intense drama, and delivered powerful blows with bar sequences, domestic moments and the gang ritual initiation scenes, directing them with assurance and verve. He created a bold, sincere picture with a distinctly 90s streak of edginess. It succeeded with viewers and critics, and – whether positive or negative – deeply impressed industry executives in the film industry who could see how Tamahori could bring this energy and talent to mainstream genre material.
American Films and Varied Projects
In America, the director made the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who ignore protocol, and then a script by Mamet survival thriller The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and his co-star as two men who trek through wild terrain after a plane crash. (This moderate movie became a cult favorite when the producer Art Linson wrote humorously about the turbulent production of filming with an animal actor in his witty Hollywood book What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a serviceable thriller, and he had another payday directing the second in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Career Shifts
Yet the peak, or maybe the nadir, of his Hollywood career was directing the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; it was the Bond film mocked for having the worst gadget in 007 history – the invisible car. Why would anyone need an invisible car, viewers asked? It was a vehicle which makes it very hard to remember its parking spot.
Subsequent Projects and Return
After this, Tamahori found some more interesting form. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured Dominic Cooper in dual parts of the dictator's hideous son the character and also Uday’s decoy double, employed to protect the heir from assassination or kidnapping: this was a forceful, engaging film which avoided the usual double tropes. In subsequent times, he went back to the theme of Maori culture, making The Convert in 2023, collaborating with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter Shane Danielsen. Tamahori was an exceptional director – but it remained his first film, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
