During 1994, the film-maker Lee Tamahori delivered one of the biggest debuts of the decade, operating at full capacity with his heartbreaking socially conscious drama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes are a working-class indigenous household in South Auckland: Temuera Morrison plays the boozing, fighting, boasting alpha-male welfare claimant the father, who returns from drinking in the pub with his weak followers to terrorise and abuse his wife Beth, portrayed by the actress, and their kids. He is entirely indifferent to the future of his older boys who have drifted into gangland culture and illegal activities, including his gentle daughter Grace, who shows promise as a storyteller. A son gets gang tattoos; another is taken to a youth detention where he is partly educated in the ways of indigenous heritage – the haka and the traditional weapon – and gains self-worth and pride. But back at Jake’s chaotic house, Grace is assaulted by a repulsive acquaintance “Bully”; disaster follows, and the mother forcefully challenges the despicable Jake: “Our people used to be fighters, but in contrast to you, Jake, they were people with mana, pride; people with spirit …”
Emotional Violence and Confident Direction
Tamahori let rip with all this intense drama, and landed sledgehammer punches with bar sequences, domestic moments and gang initiation rituals, handling them with assurance and energy. He created a bold, heartfelt film with a very 90s touch of brash and trash. It succeeded with audiences and critics, and – for good or ill – strongly influenced studio heads in Hollywood who could see how he could bring that dynamism and flair to mainstream genre material.
Hollywood Career and Varied Projects
In America, Tamahori directed the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who care nothing for protocol, and then a script by Mamet survival thriller The Bear with the actor and his co-star as characters who journey through wild terrain after a plane crash. (This film gained cult status when its producer he wrote amusingly about the chaotic circumstances of shooting with an animal actor in his droll tinseltown memoir What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a serviceable thriller, and he earned again filming the sequel in the XXX series XXX State of the Union.
Bond Film and Professional Changes
Yet the peak, or maybe the low point, of Lee Tamahori’s American work was directing the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; this was the Bond film derided for having the worst gadget in the series – a cloaked vehicle. What is the point an invisible car, viewers asked? This car that makes it difficult to remember where you parked it.
Later Work and Comeback
After this, Tamahori found some more interesting form. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured the actor in dual parts of the dictator's brutal offspring Uday and also his body double, employed to shield the heir from assassination or abduction: it was a forceful, engaging movie which sidestepped typical doppelganger tropes. In subsequent times, Tamahori returned to the subject of indigenous traditions, directing The Convert in 2023, working with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter Shane Danielsen. He proved to be an exceptional director – but it remained his first film, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
