In 1994, the director Lee Tamahori made one of the most significant first films of the decade, operating at full capacity with the gut-wrenching social-realist melodrama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes represent a working-class indigenous family in Auckland's south: Temuera Morrison plays the drinking, fighting, boasting alpha-male benefit recipient the father, who comes home from pub visits with his weak followers to terrorise and abuse Beth, his spouse, portrayed by Rena Owen, and their kids. He shows no concern to the future of his older boys who have drifted into gangland culture and crime, including his gentle daughter the girl, who has talent as a storyteller. A son gets gang tattoos; another is sent to a juvenile reformatory where he is partly educated in the ways of indigenous heritage – the haka and the traditional weapon – and learns self-worth and self-respect. Meanwhile at Jake’s chaotic house, the daughter is raped by Jake’s grotesque friend “Bully”; disaster follows, and the mother passionately confronts the despicable Jake: “Our ancestors used to be fighters, but in contrast to you, Jake, they were people with mana, dignity; soulful beings …”
Emotional Violence and Confident Direction
Tamahori unleashed with all this emotional violence, and delivered powerful blows with the pub scenes, domestic moments and the gang ritual initiation scenes, handling them with assurance and energy. He created a bold, sincere picture with a very 90s streak of edginess. It was a hit with viewers and reviewers, and – for good or ill – deeply impressed industry executives in Hollywood who could see how Tamahori could bring that dynamism and flair to mainstream genre material.
Hollywood Career and Diverse Work
Stateside, Tamahori 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 Anthony Hopkins and his co-star as two men who trek through wild terrain after their plane crashes. (This film became a cult favorite when the producer Art Linson 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 had another payday filming the second in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Career Shifts
Yet the peak, or perhaps the nadir, of Lee Tamahori’s Hollywood career was directing the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; this was the Bond film derided for having the poorest device in 007 history – a cloaked vehicle. What is the point such a car, audiences wondered? This car that makes it difficult to remember its parking spot.
Later Work and Comeback
After this, the director found renewed creativity. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred the actor in the twin roles of the dictator's brutal offspring the character and also Uday’s decoy double, employed to protect the heir from attack or abduction: it was a forceful, watchable movie which avoided typical doppelganger cliches. And in later years, he returned to the theme of Maori culture, directing The Convert in 2023, working with writer Shane Danielsen. He proved to be an outstanding director – but it was his debut, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
