During 1994, the film-maker Lee Tamahori made one of the most significant first films of that era, firing on all six cylinders with the heartbreaking social-realist drama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes represent a blue-collar Maori household in South Auckland: Temuera Morrison is the boozing, fighting, bragging dominant benefit recipient Jake, who comes home from pub visits with his pathetic sycophant mates to intimidate and assault Beth, his spouse, played by Rena Owen, and their five children. He is entirely indifferent to the future of his older boys who have drifted into gangland culture and crime, as well as his gentle daughter Grace, who has talent as a storyteller. One son receives gang tattoos; the other is sent to a youth detention where he is partly tutored in the traditions of indigenous heritage – the haka and the taiaha warrior spear – and gains dignity and self-respect. But back at Jake’s chaotic house, Grace is raped by a repulsive acquaintance “Bully”; tragedy ensues, and the mother forcefully challenges the despicable Jake: “Our people once were warriors, but unlike you, Jake, they were people with mana, dignity; soulful beings …”
Raw Emotion and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori let rip with all this intense drama, and delivered powerful blows with the pub scenes, the home scenes and gang initiation rituals, handling them with confidence and verve. He crafted 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 Hollywood who could see how he could apply this energy and flair to mainstream genre material.
American Films and Diverse Work
Stateside, Tamahori directed the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers 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 wild terrain after a plane crash. (This film became a cult favorite when the producer Art Linson wrote humorously 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 earned again directing the second in the XXX series XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Professional Changes
But the high point, or maybe the nadir, of Lee Tamahori’s American work was directing the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; it was the installment derided for having the poorest device in 007 history – the invisible car. What is the point such a car, audiences wondered? This car that makes it difficult to recall where you parked it.
Subsequent Projects and Comeback
After this, the director found some more interesting form. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred the actor in dual parts of the dictator's hideous son the character and as well as Uday’s decoy double, used to protect the young tyrant-princeling from assassination or kidnapping: this was a punchy, engaging film which avoided typical doppelganger tropes. In subsequent times, he returned to the subject of indigenous traditions, directing The Convert in 2023, collaborating with writer Shane Danielsen. He proved to be an outstanding director – but it was his first film, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
