In 1994, this director Lee Tamahori made one of the biggest first films of the decade, operating at full capacity with the gut-wrenching socially conscious drama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes are a working-class indigenous family in South Auckland: Temuera Morrison is the boozing, brawling, bragging dominant benefit recipient Jake, who returns from pub visits with his weak followers to intimidate and assault his wife Beth, played by Rena Owen, and their kids. He shows no concern to the future of his older boys who have fallen into gang life and crime, including his sensitive daughter the girl, who has talent as a storyteller. One son receives tattoos; the other is sent to a juvenile reformatory 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 the disordered home, Grace is raped by a repulsive acquaintance “Bully”; tragedy ensues, and the mother forcefully challenges the despicable Jake: “Our people used to be fighters, but unlike you, they, they were individuals with honor, dignity; people with spirit …”
Emotional Violence and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori unleashed with all this emotional violence, and delivered powerful blows with the pub scenes, the home scenes 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 audiences and reviewers, and – whether positive or negative – strongly influenced industry executives in the film industry who could see how he could bring that dynamism and flair to commercial projects.
Hollywood Career and Varied Projects
Stateside, Tamahori made the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who ignore procedure, and then the David Mamet-scripted adventure drama The Bear with the actor and Alec Baldwin as two men who trek through the wilderness after a plane crash. (This film gained cult status when its producer Art Linson wrote amusingly about the turbulent production of filming with a trained bear in his witty Hollywood book What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a serviceable suspense film, and he earned again filming the sequel in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Career Shifts
But the high point, or perhaps the nadir, of his American work was directing the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; this was the Bond film derided for having the poorest device in the series – the invisible car. What is the point an invisible car, audiences wondered? This car that makes it difficult to remember where you parked it.
Subsequent Projects and Comeback
After this, the director discovered renewed creativity. His 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 protect the heir from attack or abduction: this was a punchy, watchable movie which avoided typical double cliches. And in later years, Tamahori went back to the theme of Maori culture, directing The Convert in 2023, collaborating with writer his partner. He proved to be an outstanding director – but it was his debut, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
