In 1994, the film-maker Lee Tamahori delivered one of the biggest first films of the decade, firing on all six cylinders with the gut-wrenching socially conscious drama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes represent a working-class Maori family in South Auckland: Temuera Morrison plays the drinking, brawling, bragging dominant benefit recipient Jake, who returns from pub visits with his weak followers to intimidate and abuse Beth, his spouse, portrayed by the actress, and their five children. He shows no concern to the future of his older boys who have fallen into gangland culture and crime, including his sensitive daughter Grace, who shows promise as a storyteller. A son gets gang tattoos; another is taken to a youth detention where he is partly tutored in the traditions of indigenous heritage – the haka and the taiaha warrior spear – and gains self-worth and pride. Meanwhile at the disordered home, the daughter is assaulted by a repulsive acquaintance “Bully”; disaster follows, and Beth forcefully challenges the wretched Jake: “Our ancestors used to be fighters, but in contrast to you, Jake, they were people with mana, dignity; soulful beings …”
Raw Emotion and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori let rip with such intense drama, and landed sledgehammer punches with the pub scenes, the home scenes and the gang ritual initiation scenes, handling them with assurance and verve. He crafted a bold, heartfelt picture 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 talent to commercial projects.
Hollywood Career and Varied Projects
In America, the director directed the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who care nothing for procedure, and then a script by Mamet survival thriller The Bear with the actor and his co-star as two men who journey through the wilderness after their plane crashes. (This film gained cult status when the producer Art Linson wrote humorously about the turbulent production of shooting with a trained bear in his witty Hollywood book What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a serviceable suspense film, and he had another payday directing the second in the XXX series XXX State of the Union.
Bond Film and Career Shifts
Yet the peak, or perhaps the nadir, of Lee Tamahori’s American work was directing the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; it was the Bond film derided for having the worst gadget in 007 history – the invisible car. What is the point an invisible car, viewers asked? It was a vehicle that makes it difficult to remember where you parked it.
Later Work and Comeback
Following this, the director found some more interesting form. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred Dominic Cooper in dual parts of the dictator's brutal offspring the character and as well as Uday’s decoy double, used to shield the heir from assassination or abduction: it was a punchy, watchable movie which sidestepped the usual doppelganger cliches. And in later years, he went back to the theme of indigenous traditions, making The Convert in 2023, collaborating with writer Shane Danielsen. Tamahori was an outstanding filmmaker – but it was his first film, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
