During 1994, this film-maker Lee Tamahori made one of the biggest first films of the decade, firing on all six cylinders with the gut-wrenching social-realist drama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes represent a working-class Maori family in Auckland's south: Temuera Morrison plays the boozing, brawling, boasting alpha-male benefit recipient the father, who returns from pub visits with his pathetic sycophant mates to terrorise and abuse his wife Beth, portrayed by Rena Owen, and their kids. He is entirely indifferent to the future of his two elder sons who have drifted into gang life and illegal activities, including his gentle daughter Grace, who shows promise as a writer. One son gets gang tattoos; another is sent to a youth detention where he is partly educated in the traditions of Maori culture – the haka and the taiaha warrior spear – and learns dignity and self-respect. Meanwhile at the disordered home, the daughter is raped by a repulsive acquaintance “Uncle Bully”; tragedy ensues, and Beth forcefully challenges the despicable Jake: “Our ancestors used to be fighters, but unlike you, they, they were people with mana, pride; people with spirit …”
Emotional Violence and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori unleashed with all this intense drama, and landed sledgehammer punches with the pub scenes, domestic moments and the gang ritual initiation scenes, directing them with assurance and energy. He created a bold, sincere picture with a distinctly 90s streak of brash and trash. It succeeded with audiences and reviewers, and – whether positive or negative – strongly influenced industry executives in Hollywood who could see how Tamahori could apply that dynamism and talent to commercial projects.
Hollywood Career and Varied Projects
In America, Tamahori made the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who ignore protocol, and then the David Mamet-scripted adventure drama The Bear with the actor and Alec Baldwin as two men who trek through wild terrain after a plane crash. (This moderate movie gained cult status when its producer Art Linson wrote humorously about the chaotic circumstances 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 earned again directing the sequel in the XXX series XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Career Shifts
But the high point, or perhaps the low point, of Lee Tamahori’s Hollywood career was taking on the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; it was the Bond film derided for having the worst gadget in the series – the invisible car. What is the point an invisible car, audiences wondered? This car which makes it very hard to recall its parking spot.
Later Work and Comeback
Following this, Tamahori found renewed creativity. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred Dominic Cooper in the twin roles of the dictator's brutal offspring Uday and also his body double, used to shield the young tyrant-princeling from assassination or abduction: it was a punchy, engaging movie which sidestepped the usual double cliches. And in later years, Tamahori went back to the theme of indigenous traditions, making The Convert in 2023, collaborating with writer Shane Danielsen. Tamahori was an exceptional filmmaker – but it was his first film, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
