During 1994, the film-maker Lee Tamahori made one of the most significant debuts of that era, firing on all six cylinders with his gut-wrenching social-realist melodrama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes represent a working-class indigenous household in Auckland's south: Temuera Morrison is the boozing, fighting, bragging dominant welfare claimant the father, who comes home from pub visits with his weak followers to terrorise and assault his wife Beth, played by the actress, and their kids. He shows no concern to the fate of his older boys who have drifted into gang life and illegal activities, as well as his sensitive daughter the girl, who shows promise as a storyteller. One son gets gang tattoos; another is sent to a youth detention where he is at least tutored in the traditions of indigenous heritage – the war dance and the traditional weapon – and gains self-worth and pride. Meanwhile at Jake’s chaotic house, Grace is raped by a repulsive acquaintance “Uncle Bully”; tragedy ensues, and the mother passionately confronts the despicable Jake: “Our people once were warriors, but in contrast to you, Jake, they were individuals with honor, dignity; people with spirit …”
Raw Emotion and Confident Direction
Tamahori let rip with such emotional violence, and delivered powerful blows with the pub scenes, the home scenes and the gang ritual initiation scenes, directing them with assurance and verve. He crafted a gutsy, sincere film with a distinctly 90s streak of edginess. It succeeded with audiences and reviewers, and – whether positive or negative – strongly influenced studio heads in the film industry who could see how Tamahori could bring that dynamism and flair to mainstream genre material.
Hollywood Career and Diverse Work
Stateside, the director directed the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who ignore protocol, and then a script by Mamet adventure drama The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and his co-star as two men who journey through wild terrain after a plane crash. (This film gained cult status when the producer Art Linson wrote amusingly about the chaotic circumstances of shooting with a trained bear in his droll tinseltown memoir What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a decent thriller, and he earned again directing the second in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Career Shifts
But the high point, or maybe the low point, of Lee Tamahori’s Hollywood career was directing the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; this was the Bond film derided for having the poorest device in the series – a cloaked vehicle. Why would anyone need such a car, viewers asked? This car which makes it very hard to recall its parking spot.
Subsequent Projects and Comeback
After this, Tamahori found some more interesting form. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred the actor in dual parts of the dictator's hideous son Uday and as well as Uday’s decoy double, employed to protect the young tyrant-princeling from attack or abduction: it was a forceful, engaging movie which avoided the usual double cliches. And in later years, Tamahori went back to the theme of Maori culture, directing The Convert in 2023, collaborating with writer his partner. Tamahori was an exceptional filmmaker – but it remained his first film, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
