In 1994, this film-maker Lee Tamahori made one of the most significant debuts of the decade, firing on all six cylinders with his gut-wrenching social-realist melodrama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes represent a blue-collar indigenous household in South Auckland: Temuera Morrison plays the drinking, fighting, bragging alpha-male welfare claimant Jake, who comes home from drinking in the pub with his weak followers to terrorise and assault his wife Beth, played by the actress, and their five children. He shows no concern to the fate of his two elder sons who have drifted into gang life and illegal activities, as well as his sensitive daughter the girl, who shows promise as a storyteller. One son receives tattoos; the other is taken to a youth detention where he is partly tutored in the ways of indigenous heritage – the haka and the traditional weapon – and learns self-worth and self-respect. Meanwhile at the disordered home, the daughter is raped by Jake’s grotesque friend “Uncle Bully”; disaster follows, and Beth forcefully challenges the wretched Jake: “Our people used to be fighters, but in contrast to you, they, they were people with mana, pride; people with spirit …”
Raw Emotion and Confident Direction
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 energy. He crafted a gutsy, heartfelt film with a very 90s streak of brash and trash. It succeeded with viewers and critics, and – for good or ill – strongly influenced industry executives in the film industry who recognized how he could bring this energy and talent to commercial projects.
American Films and Varied Projects
Stateside, the director directed the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who ignore procedure, and then the David Mamet-scripted adventure drama The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin as characters who trek through wild terrain after a plane crash. (This moderate movie gained cult status when the producer Art Linson wrote humorously about the turbulent production of filming with a trained bear in his droll tinseltown memoir What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a decent suspense film, and he earned again filming the second in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Professional Changes
Yet the peak, 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 derided for having the poorest device in 007 history – the invisible car. What is the point an invisible car, viewers asked? This car which makes it very hard to recall its parking spot.
Later Work and Return
After this, Tamahori found renewed creativity. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred Dominic Cooper in the twin roles of Saddam Hussein’s hideous son Uday and also his body double, used to shield the heir from assassination or abduction: this was a punchy, engaging movie which avoided typical doppelganger cliches. And in later years, Tamahori went back to the theme of indigenous traditions, making The Convert in 2023, working with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter his partner. Tamahori was an exceptional filmmaker – but it was his debut, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
