During 1994, this director Lee Tamahori delivered 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 indigenous household in South Auckland: Temuera Morrison is the boozing, fighting, boasting alpha-male welfare claimant Jake, who comes home from drinking in the pub with his weak followers to intimidate and assault Beth, his spouse, portrayed by Rena Owen, and their five children. He shows no concern to the future of his two elder sons who have drifted into gangland culture and illegal activities, including his sensitive daughter the girl, who has talent as a writer. One son receives gang tattoos; another is taken to a juvenile reformatory where he is at least educated in the traditions of indigenous heritage – the haka and the traditional weapon – and learns dignity and self-respect. Meanwhile at Jake’s chaotic house, Grace is raped by Jake’s grotesque friend “Bully”; tragedy ensues, and the mother forcefully challenges the wretched Jake: “Our ancestors once were warriors, but unlike you, Jake, they were individuals with honor, pride; soulful beings …”
Emotional Violence and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori unleashed with such emotional violence, and landed sledgehammer punches with the pub scenes, domestic moments and the gang ritual initiation scenes, handling them with confidence and verve. He crafted a gutsy, heartfelt film with a distinctly 90s streak of brash and trash. It was a hit with viewers and critics, and – whether positive or negative – strongly influenced studio heads in Hollywood who could see how he could apply this energy and talent to mainstream genre material.
American Films and Diverse Work
In America, the director directed the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who ignore protocol, and then the David Mamet-scripted survival thriller The Bear with the actor and Alec Baldwin as characters who trek through wild terrain after a plane crash. (This film became a cult favorite when the producer he 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 decent suspense film, and he had another payday directing the second in the XXX series XXX State of the Union.
Bond Film and Career Shifts
But the high point, or perhaps the low point, of Lee Tamahori’s American work was directing the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; it was the installment derided for having the worst gadget in the series – the invisible car. What is the point an invisible car, viewers asked? It was a vehicle that makes it difficult to recall where you parked it.
Later Work and Return
After this, Tamahori found some more interesting form. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred Dominic Cooper in the twin roles of the dictator's hideous son the character and as well as his body double, employed to shield the young tyrant-princeling from assassination or abduction: it was a forceful, watchable movie which sidestepped the usual doppelganger tropes. In subsequent times, Tamahori returned to the subject of indigenous traditions, making The Convert in 2023, collaborating with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter his partner. He proved to be an exceptional director – but it remained his first film, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
