During 1994, the film-maker Lee Tamahori made one of the most significant first films of that era, operating at full capacity with his heartbreaking socially conscious drama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes are a blue-collar Maori household in South Auckland: Temuera Morrison plays the drinking, brawling, boasting dominant benefit recipient Jake, who returns from drinking in the pub with his weak followers to terrorise and assault his wife Beth, played by the actress, and their kids. He is entirely indifferent to the fate of his older boys who have fallen into gangland culture and crime, including his sensitive daughter Grace, who shows promise as a storyteller. A son receives gang tattoos; another is sent to a juvenile reformatory where he is at least educated in the ways of indigenous heritage – the war dance and the traditional weapon – and learns self-worth and pride. Meanwhile at the disordered home, the daughter is raped by a repulsive acquaintance “Bully”; tragedy ensues, and the mother passionately confronts the wretched Jake: “Our people once were warriors, but unlike you, they, they were people with mana, pride; soulful beings …”
Emotional Violence and Confident Direction
Tamahori let rip with such intense drama, and delivered powerful blows with the pub scenes, the home scenes and the gang ritual initiation scenes, handling them with assurance and verve. He created a gutsy, heartfelt picture with a very 90s streak of brash and trash. It succeeded with viewers and reviewers, and – for good or ill – strongly influenced industry executives in the film industry who could see how he could bring that dynamism and talent to commercial projects.
Hollywood Career and Varied Projects
Stateside, the director made the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who ignore protocol, and then the David Mamet-scripted survival thriller The Bear with the actor and Alec Baldwin as two men who trek through wild terrain after a plane crash. (This moderate movie became a cult favorite when its producer he wrote amusingly 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 had another payday filming the second in the XXX series XXX State of the Union.
Bond Film and Career Shifts
But the high point, or maybe the nadir, of his Hollywood career was directing the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; this was the installment mocked for having the poorest device in 007 history – the invisible car. Why would anyone need such a car, viewers asked? This car which makes it very hard to recall its parking spot.
Later Work and Comeback
Following this, Tamahori discovered renewed creativity. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured the actor in dual parts of Saddam Hussein’s brutal offspring the character and also Uday’s decoy double, employed to shield the young tyrant-princeling from assassination or kidnapping: this was a forceful, watchable film which avoided typical doppelganger tropes. And in later years, Tamahori went back to the subject of indigenous traditions, directing The Convert in 2023, working with writer his partner. He proved to be an exceptional director – but it remained his debut, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
