In 1994, the director Lee Tamahori delivered one of the biggest first films of the decade, firing on all six cylinders with the heartbreaking socially conscious melodrama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes represent a blue-collar indigenous household in South Auckland: Temuera Morrison plays the drinking, brawling, boasting dominant benefit recipient the father, who returns from drinking in the pub with his pathetic sycophant mates to intimidate and abuse Beth, his spouse, played by Rena Owen, and their five children. He is entirely indifferent to the fate of his older boys who have fallen into gang life and illegal activities, including his gentle daughter Grace, who shows promise as a storyteller. A son receives gang tattoos; the other is sent to a juvenile reformatory where he is partly tutored in the ways of Maori culture – the haka and the taiaha warrior spear – and gains dignity and self-respect. Meanwhile at Jake’s chaotic house, Grace is raped by a repulsive acquaintance “Bully”; disaster follows, and Beth forcefully challenges the wretched Jake: “Our ancestors 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 unleashed with all this emotional violence, and delivered powerful blows with bar sequences, the home scenes and gang initiation rituals, handling them with assurance and verve. He crafted a gutsy, heartfelt film with a distinctly 90s streak of brash and trash. It succeeded with viewers and reviewers, and – whether positive or negative – strongly influenced industry executives in Hollywood who could see how Tamahori could bring this energy and talent to commercial projects.
Hollywood Career and Varied Projects
Stateside, the director directed the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who care nothing for procedure, and then the David Mamet-scripted survival thriller The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and his co-star as characters who trek through wild terrain after a plane crash. (This moderate movie became a cult favorite when the producer Art Linson wrote amusingly about the turbulent production of shooting with an animal actor in his droll tinseltown memoir What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a decent thriller, and he had another payday directing the sequel in the XXX series XXX State of the Union.
Bond Film and Professional Changes
But the high point, or perhaps the nadir, of Lee Tamahori’s Hollywood career was taking on the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; it was the installment derided for having the poorest device in 007 history – a cloaked vehicle. What is the point such a car, audiences wondered? This car which makes it very hard to remember its parking spot.
Subsequent Projects and Comeback
After this, Tamahori found renewed creativity. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred the actor in dual parts of the dictator's brutal offspring the character and as well as his body double, used to shield the heir from assassination or kidnapping: this was a forceful, watchable movie which avoided typical double tropes. And in later years, he returned to the theme of Maori culture, directing The Convert in 2023, collaborating with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter Shane Danielsen. He proved to be an outstanding filmmaker – but it was his debut, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
