During 1994, the film-maker Lee Tamahori made one of the biggest debuts of the decade, operating at full capacity with his heartbreaking socially conscious melodrama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes represent a blue-collar Maori family in Auckland's south: Temuera Morrison plays the boozing, fighting, boasting alpha-male benefit recipient the father, who comes home from pub visits with his weak followers to terrorise 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 gang life and crime, including his gentle daughter the girl, who shows promise as a storyteller. One son receives tattoos; another is sent to a youth detention where he is partly tutored in the traditions of Maori culture – the war dance and the taiaha warrior spear – and gains dignity and self-respect. But back at the disordered home, the daughter is assaulted by Jake’s grotesque friend “Bully”; tragedy ensues, and the mother forcefully challenges the wretched Jake: “Our ancestors once were warriors, but in contrast to you, they, they were individuals with honor, dignity; people with spirit …”
Raw Emotion and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori let rip with such emotional violence, and landed sledgehammer punches with the pub scenes, the home scenes and the gang ritual initiation scenes, handling them with confidence and verve. He crafted a gutsy, sincere film with a distinctly 90s touch of brash and trash. It succeeded with audiences and critics, and – for good or ill – deeply impressed studio heads in the film industry who recognized how Tamahori could apply this energy and talent to commercial projects.
American Films and Diverse Work
Stateside, Tamahori made the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who care nothing for procedure, and then the David Mamet-scripted adventure drama The Bear with the actor and his co-star as characters who journey through the wilderness after their plane crashes. (This film gained cult status when the producer he wrote amusingly about the turbulent production of filming with a trained bear in his droll tinseltown memoir What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a serviceable thriller, and he earned again directing the second in the XXX series XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Career Shifts
Yet the peak, or maybe the low point, of his American work was taking on the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; it was the Bond film derided for having the poorest device in the series – a cloaked vehicle. What is the point such a car, viewers asked? This car which makes it very hard to remember where you parked it.
Subsequent Projects and Return
After this, Tamahori found renewed creativity. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured Dominic Cooper in dual parts of the dictator's brutal offspring Uday and as well as his body double, employed to protect the young tyrant-princeling from assassination or kidnapping: this was a punchy, engaging film which avoided typical double cliches. In subsequent times, he went back to the subject of indigenous traditions, directing The Convert in 2023, collaborating with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter his partner. He proved to be an outstanding director – but it remained his first film, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
