During 1994, the director Lee Tamahori delivered one of the most significant first films of the decade, operating at full capacity with his gut-wrenching social-realist melodrama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes represent a blue-collar indigenous family in South Auckland: Temuera Morrison plays the drinking, brawling, boasting alpha-male welfare claimant Jake, who returns from drinking in the pub with his pathetic sycophant mates to terrorise and abuse his wife Beth, played by the actress, and their kids. He is entirely indifferent to the fate of his two elder sons who have drifted into gangland culture and illegal activities, including his gentle daughter the girl, who has talent as a writer. A son gets tattoos; another is taken to a youth detention where he is at least tutored in the ways of Maori culture – the war dance and the taiaha warrior spear – and learns self-worth and pride. But back at Jake’s chaotic house, Grace is raped by Jake’s grotesque friend “Uncle Bully”; tragedy ensues, and the mother forcefully challenges the wretched Jake: “Our ancestors used to be fighters, but in contrast to you, Jake, they were people with mana, dignity; people with spirit …”
Emotional Violence and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori let rip with such intense drama, and landed sledgehammer punches with bar sequences, domestic moments and the gang ritual initiation scenes, handling them with confidence and energy. He crafted a bold, sincere film with a very 90s streak of brash and trash. It was a hit with audiences and critics, and – whether positive or negative – strongly influenced industry executives in the film industry who could see how Tamahori could bring that dynamism and flair to mainstream genre material.
American Films and Varied Projects
Stateside, Tamahori made the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who care nothing for protocol, and then a script by Mamet adventure drama The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and his co-star as two men who trek through the wilderness after their plane crashes. (This film became a cult favorite when the producer he wrote humorously about the chaotic circumstances of filming with an animal actor in his droll tinseltown memoir What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a serviceable thriller, and he had another payday directing the second in the XXX series XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Career Shifts
Yet the peak, or perhaps the low point, of Lee Tamahori’s American work was taking on the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; this was the Bond film mocked for having the poorest device in the series – a cloaked vehicle. What is the point an invisible car, audiences wondered? This car that makes it difficult to remember its parking spot.
Subsequent Projects and Comeback
After this, Tamahori discovered renewed creativity. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured Dominic Cooper in dual parts of Saddam Hussein’s brutal offspring Uday and also his body double, employed to protect the heir from attack or abduction: it was a forceful, watchable movie which avoided typical double tropes. And in later years, Tamahori went back to the theme of Maori culture, making The Convert in 2023, collaborating with writer his partner. Tamahori was an exceptional filmmaker – but it was his debut, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
