During 1994, the film-maker Lee Tamahori delivered one of the most significant first films of the decade, firing on all six cylinders with the heartbreaking socially conscious melodrama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes are a working-class Maori family in Auckland's south: Temuera Morrison is the drinking, brawling, bragging alpha-male benefit recipient the father, who comes home from pub visits with his weak followers to terrorise and abuse Beth, his spouse, played by the actress, and their five children. He is entirely indifferent to the fate of his two elder sons who have drifted into gang life and crime, as well as his gentle daughter the girl, who has talent as a writer. One son gets tattoos; the other is sent to a youth detention where he is partly educated in the ways of indigenous heritage – the war dance and the traditional weapon – and learns self-worth and self-respect. Meanwhile at Jake’s chaotic house, the daughter is assaulted by Jake’s grotesque friend “Uncle Bully”; tragedy ensues, and Beth forcefully challenges the wretched Jake: “Our people used to be fighters, but in contrast to you, they, they were people with mana, pride; people with spirit …”
Emotional Violence and Confident Direction
Tamahori let rip with all this emotional violence, and delivered powerful blows with bar sequences, the home scenes and the gang ritual initiation scenes, handling them with assurance and energy. He created a bold, heartfelt film with a very 90s streak of edginess. It succeeded with audiences and critics, and – whether positive or negative – strongly influenced industry executives in Hollywood who recognized how Tamahori could apply this energy and talent to commercial projects.
Hollywood Career and Varied Projects
In America, the director made the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who care nothing for procedure, and then a script by Mamet survival thriller The Bear with the actor and Alec Baldwin as characters who journey through wild terrain after a plane crash. (This film became a cult favorite when its 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 Professional Changes
Yet the peak, or maybe the nadir, of Lee Tamahori’s 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 the series – the invisible car. What is the point an invisible car, audiences wondered? This car which makes it very hard to remember where you parked it.
Later Work and Comeback
Following this, the director discovered renewed creativity. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred Dominic Cooper in dual parts of Saddam Hussein’s brutal offspring Uday and also Uday’s decoy double, employed to shield the heir from assassination or abduction: it was a punchy, watchable film which avoided the usual doppelganger cliches. And in later years, he went back to the theme of indigenous traditions, making The Convert in 2023, working with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter his partner. He proved to be an exceptional filmmaker – but it was his debut, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
