During 1994, the director Lee Tamahori made one of the most significant debuts of the decade, firing on all six cylinders with the heartbreaking socially conscious melodrama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes are a blue-collar Maori household in South Auckland: Temuera Morrison plays the boozing, brawling, bragging alpha-male benefit recipient Jake, who returns from pub visits with his weak followers to terrorise and abuse his wife Beth, portrayed by Rena Owen, and their kids. He shows no concern to the future of his two elder sons who have drifted into gangland culture and illegal activities, as well as his gentle daughter Grace, who has talent as a writer. One son receives tattoos; another is sent to a youth detention where he is at least tutored in the traditions of Maori culture – the haka and the taiaha warrior spear – and learns self-worth and pride. Meanwhile at Jake’s chaotic house, Grace is raped by a repulsive acquaintance “Bully”; disaster follows, and the mother passionately confronts the despicable Jake: “Our ancestors once were warriors, but in contrast to you, Jake, they were people with mana, pride; soulful beings …”
Raw Emotion and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori let rip with all this intense drama, and delivered powerful blows with bar sequences, the home scenes and the gang ritual initiation scenes, handling them with confidence and energy. He crafted a gutsy, heartfelt film with a distinctly 90s touch of edginess. It succeeded with audiences and critics, and – for good or ill – strongly influenced industry executives in the film industry who recognized how Tamahori could apply this energy and talent to mainstream genre material.
Hollywood Career and Diverse Work
In America, Tamahori directed the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who care nothing for procedure, and then a script by Mamet survival thriller The Bear with the actor and his co-star as two men who trek through wild terrain after their plane crashes. (This film gained cult status when its producer he wrote humorously about the turbulent production of shooting with an animal actor in his witty Hollywood book What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a decent suspense film, and he had another payday directing the sequel in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Professional Changes
But the high point, or maybe the nadir, of his American work was taking on the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; this was the Bond film derided for having the worst gadget in the series – a cloaked vehicle. Why would anyone need such a car, audiences wondered? It was a vehicle which makes it very hard to remember where you parked it.
Later Work and Return
Following this, Tamahori found 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, used to protect the young tyrant-princeling from assassination or kidnapping: this was a punchy, engaging movie which sidestepped the usual double tropes. And in later years, he went back to the theme of Maori culture, making The Convert in 2023, collaborating with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter Shane Danielsen. Tamahori was an outstanding director – but it was his first film, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
