In 1994, this film-maker Lee Tamahori delivered one of the biggest first films of the decade, operating at full capacity with his heartbreaking socially conscious drama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes are a blue-collar indigenous household in Auckland's south: Temuera Morrison plays the boozing, fighting, bragging dominant welfare claimant the father, who returns from drinking in the pub with his weak followers to intimidate and assault Beth, his spouse, portrayed by Rena Owen, and their five children. He is entirely indifferent to the future of his two elder sons who have fallen into gang life and illegal activities, including his sensitive daughter the girl, who has talent as a storyteller. A son receives gang tattoos; the other is sent to a youth detention where he is partly tutored in the traditions of Maori culture – the war dance and the traditional weapon – and learns dignity and self-respect. But back at Jake’s chaotic house, Grace is assaulted by Jake’s grotesque friend “Bully”; disaster follows, and Beth forcefully challenges the wretched Jake: “Our ancestors used to be fighters, but in contrast to you, Jake, they were individuals with honor, dignity; people with spirit …”
Emotional Violence and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori unleashed with all this intense drama, and delivered powerful blows with bar sequences, the home scenes and gang initiation rituals, handling them with confidence and verve. He created a gutsy, sincere picture with a distinctly 90s touch of brash and trash. It succeeded with audiences and reviewers, and – whether positive or negative – strongly influenced studio heads in Hollywood who recognized how he could apply this energy and talent to mainstream genre material.
Hollywood Career and Varied Projects
In America, Tamahori made the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who care nothing for procedure, and then a script by Mamet survival thriller The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and his co-star as characters who trek through the wilderness after their plane crashes. (This film gained cult status when its producer he 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 decent thriller, and he earned again filming the sequel in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
Bond Film and Professional Changes
But the high point, or perhaps the nadir, of Lee Tamahori’s Hollywood career was taking on 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 an invisible car, audiences wondered? It was a vehicle which makes it very hard to remember where you parked it.
Later Work and Return
After this, Tamahori found renewed creativity. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured the actor in dual parts of Saddam Hussein’s hideous son Uday and also his body double, employed to protect the heir from attack or abduction: it was a forceful, watchable movie which avoided typical double tropes. In subsequent times, he returned to the subject of Maori culture, making The Convert in 2023, working with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter his partner. He proved to be an outstanding director – but it remained his first film, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
