In 1994, this director Lee Tamahori made one of the biggest first films of that era, firing on all six cylinders with his heartbreaking social-realist melodrama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes are a blue-collar indigenous family in South Auckland: Temuera Morrison plays the drinking, fighting, bragging dominant benefit recipient Jake, who returns from drinking in the pub with his pathetic sycophant mates to terrorise and assault Beth, his spouse, played by Rena Owen, and their kids. He shows no concern to the future of his two elder sons who have fallen into gang life and crime, including his gentle daughter Grace, who shows promise as a writer. A son gets gang tattoos; another is sent to a youth detention where he is partly educated in the traditions of Maori culture – the haka and the taiaha warrior spear – and gains self-worth and self-respect. But back at the disordered home, the daughter is assaulted by a repulsive acquaintance “Uncle Bully”; tragedy ensues, and the mother passionately confronts the despicable Jake: “Our ancestors used to be fighters, but unlike you, they, they were people with mana, dignity; people with spirit …”
Emotional Violence and Confident Direction
Tamahori unleashed with all this emotional violence, and delivered powerful blows with the pub scenes, domestic moments and gang initiation rituals, handling them with assurance and verve. He crafted a bold, heartfelt picture with a very 90s touch of brash and trash. It succeeded with viewers and reviewers, and – whether positive or negative – strongly influenced studio heads in the film industry who could see how Tamahori could apply this energy and flair to commercial projects.
American Films and Diverse Work
Stateside, the director made the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who care nothing for procedure, and then a script by Mamet adventure drama The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin as two men who trek through wild terrain after a plane crash. (This moderate movie became a cult favorite when the producer Art Linson wrote amusingly about the turbulent production of shooting with an animal actor 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
Yet the peak, or maybe the nadir, of his American work was directing the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; it was the installment mocked for having the poorest device in 007 history – a cloaked vehicle. Why would anyone need such a car, viewers asked? It was a vehicle that makes it difficult to recall its parking spot.
Subsequent Projects and Comeback
After this, Tamahori found renewed creativity. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred the actor in the twin roles of the dictator's brutal offspring Uday and also his body double, used to shield the heir from assassination or kidnapping: this was a punchy, engaging movie which avoided typical doppelganger tropes. And in later years, Tamahori went back to the subject of Maori culture, directing The Convert in 2023, working with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter his partner. He proved to be an outstanding filmmaker – but it was his first film, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
