During 1994, the film-maker Lee Tamahori made one of the most significant first films of the decade, operating at full capacity with his heartbreaking social-realist melodrama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes are a working-class indigenous household in South Auckland: Temuera Morrison is the drinking, brawling, bragging alpha-male benefit recipient Jake, who returns from drinking in the pub with his pathetic sycophant mates to intimidate and abuse his wife Beth, played by Rena Owen, and their kids. He shows no concern to the future of his two elder sons who have drifted into gangland culture and crime, including his sensitive daughter Grace, who has talent as a storyteller. A son gets tattoos; the other is taken 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. But back at Jake’s chaotic house, Grace is assaulted by Jake’s grotesque friend “Uncle Bully”; tragedy ensues, and the mother passionately confronts the wretched Jake: “Our people used to be fighters, but unlike you, Jake, they were individuals with honor, dignity; people with spirit …”
Emotional Violence and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori unleashed with all this intense drama, and delivered powerful blows with the pub scenes, domestic moments and the gang ritual initiation scenes, handling them with assurance and energy. He crafted a bold, heartfelt picture with a very 90s streak of edginess. It succeeded with audiences and reviewers, and – whether positive or negative – deeply impressed industry executives in the film industry who could see how Tamahori could bring that dynamism and flair to commercial projects.
American Films and Varied Projects
Stateside, Tamahori directed the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who ignore procedure, and then a script by Mamet survival thriller The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and his co-star as characters who trek through wild terrain after their plane crashes. (This moderate movie became a cult favorite when the producer he wrote humorously about the chaotic circumstances of shooting with a trained bear in his droll tinseltown memoir What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a serviceable suspense film, and he earned again filming the second in the XXX series XXX State of the Union.
Bond Film and Career Shifts
Yet the peak, or perhaps the low point, of Lee Tamahori’s American work was directing the 007 film 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 such a car, viewers asked? It was a vehicle that makes it difficult to remember its parking spot.
Subsequent Projects and Return
After this, the director found renewed creativity. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred the actor in the twin roles of the dictator's brutal offspring the character and also Uday’s decoy double, employed to protect the young tyrant-princeling from attack or kidnapping: this was a forceful, watchable movie which avoided typical double cliches. In subsequent times, he went back to the subject of indigenous traditions, directing The Convert in 2023, working with writer Shane Danielsen. Tamahori was an exceptional filmmaker – but it remained his debut, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
