During 1994, the director Lee Tamahori made one of the biggest first films of that era, operating at full capacity with the heartbreaking social-realist drama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes represent a working-class Maori household in South Auckland: Temuera Morrison is the boozing, fighting, boasting dominant welfare claimant Jake, who comes home from drinking in the pub with his pathetic sycophant mates to terrorise and assault his wife Beth, played by the actress, and their five children. He is entirely indifferent to the future of his older boys who have drifted into gang life and crime, including his gentle daughter the girl, who shows promise as a writer. A son gets gang tattoos; the other is taken to a juvenile reformatory where he is at least educated in the ways of Maori culture – the war dance and the taiaha warrior spear – and learns dignity and pride. But back at Jake’s chaotic house, Grace is raped by a repulsive acquaintance “Uncle Bully”; disaster follows, and Beth forcefully challenges the despicable Jake: “Our people once were warriors, but unlike you, Jake, they were individuals with honor, pride; people with spirit …”
Raw Emotion and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori unleashed with such intense drama, and delivered powerful blows with the pub scenes, the home scenes and gang initiation rituals, directing them with assurance and verve. He crafted a bold, heartfelt film with a very 90s streak of edginess. It succeeded with viewers and critics, and – for good or ill – strongly influenced industry executives in the film industry who could see how Tamahori could bring that dynamism and flair to mainstream genre material.
Hollywood Career and Varied Projects
Stateside, the director made the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who ignore protocol, and then a script by Mamet survival thriller The Bear with the actor and Alec Baldwin as characters who journey through the wilderness after a plane crash. (This film gained cult status when its producer he wrote humorously about the turbulent production of shooting with a trained bear 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.
007 Movie and Professional Changes
Yet the peak, or perhaps the low point, of Lee Tamahori’s American work was taking on the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; this was the installment derided for having the worst gadget in the series – the invisible car. Why would anyone need an invisible car, viewers asked? This car which makes it very hard to remember its parking spot.
Later Work and Return
After this, Tamahori discovered renewed creativity. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured Dominic Cooper in the twin roles of Saddam Hussein’s hideous son Uday and as well as his body double, employed to shield the young tyrant-princeling from attack or kidnapping: this was a forceful, watchable film which avoided typical double cliches. And in later years, Tamahori went back to the theme of indigenous traditions, directing The Convert in 2023, working with writer Shane Danielsen. He proved to be an exceptional filmmaker – but it was his debut, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
