In 1994, this director Lee Tamahori delivered one of the biggest first films of the decade, operating at full capacity with his heartbreaking social-realist drama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes represent a blue-collar Maori family in South Auckland: Temuera Morrison is the boozing, fighting, bragging dominant welfare claimant Jake, who returns from drinking in the pub with his pathetic sycophant mates to intimidate and abuse his wife Beth, played by the actress, and their kids. He is entirely indifferent to the fate of his two elder sons who have fallen into gangland culture and crime, including his gentle daughter Grace, who shows promise as a storyteller. One son gets tattoos; the other is taken to a juvenile reformatory where he is partly educated in the ways of indigenous heritage – the war dance and the traditional weapon – and learns dignity and self-respect. But back at Jake’s chaotic house, the daughter is raped by a repulsive acquaintance “Uncle Bully”; tragedy ensues, and the mother passionately confronts the wretched Jake: “Our people used to be fighters, but unlike you, Jake, they were individuals with honor, pride; soulful beings …”
Emotional Violence and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori unleashed with all this emotional violence, and delivered powerful blows with bar sequences, domestic moments and the gang ritual initiation scenes, handling them with confidence and energy. He crafted a gutsy, sincere film with a very 90s touch of edginess. It was a hit with audiences and reviewers, and – for good or ill – deeply impressed studio heads in the film industry who could see how Tamahori could bring that dynamism and talent to mainstream genre material.
Hollywood Career and Varied Projects
Stateside, Tamahori made the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who ignore procedure, and then the David Mamet-scripted survival thriller The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and his co-star as two men who journey through the wilderness after their plane crashes. (This moderate movie gained cult status when the producer Art Linson wrote humorously about the chaotic circumstances of filming with an animal actor 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 XXX series XXX State of the Union.
Bond Film and Career Shifts
Yet the peak, or maybe the nadir, of Lee Tamahori’s American work was taking on the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; it was the Bond film derided for having the worst gadget in the series – a cloaked vehicle. What is the point such a car, audiences wondered? It was a vehicle which makes it very hard to remember its parking spot.
Later Work and Comeback
After this, the director discovered renewed creativity. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred Dominic Cooper in dual parts of the dictator's brutal offspring Uday and also his body double, employed to protect the young tyrant-princeling from assassination or kidnapping: it was a forceful, watchable film which avoided typical doppelganger cliches. In subsequent times, he went back to the theme of indigenous traditions, directing The Convert in 2023, collaborating 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.
