In 1994, this director Lee Tamahori made one of the biggest first films of the decade, operating at full capacity with his heartbreaking socially conscious melodrama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes are a blue-collar Maori family in Auckland's south: Temuera Morrison plays the drinking, brawling, bragging alpha-male welfare claimant Jake, who returns from pub visits with his weak followers to intimidate and abuse Beth, his spouse, played by Rena Owen, and their five children. He shows no concern to the fate of his two elder sons who have drifted into gang life and illegal activities, as well as his gentle daughter Grace, who has talent as a writer. A son gets tattoos; the other is sent to a youth detention where he is partly educated in the ways of indigenous heritage – the haka and the traditional weapon – and gains dignity and pride. But back at Jake’s chaotic house, the daughter is raped by Jake’s grotesque friend “Uncle Bully”; disaster follows, and Beth passionately confronts the despicable Jake: “Our ancestors once were warriors, but unlike you, they, they were people with mana, pride; people with spirit …”
Emotional Violence and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori unleashed with such emotional violence, and delivered powerful blows with the pub scenes, the home scenes and gang initiation rituals, directing them with confidence and energy. He created a gutsy, sincere film with a distinctly 90s touch of edginess. It succeeded with viewers and reviewers, and – for good or ill – deeply impressed studio heads in Hollywood who could see how he could bring that dynamism and flair to commercial projects.
Hollywood Career and Diverse Work
In America, Tamahori made the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who ignore protocol, and then the David Mamet-scripted survival thriller The Bear with the actor and his co-star as two men who journey through the wilderness after a plane crash. (This moderate movie became a cult favorite when the producer Art Linson wrote humorously about the chaotic circumstances of shooting with an animal actor in his droll tinseltown memoir What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a decent suspense film, and he had another payday directing the sequel in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Career Shifts
Yet the peak, or maybe the nadir, of his American work was directing the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; it was the installment derided for having the poorest device in 007 history – a cloaked vehicle. Why would anyone need an invisible car, audiences wondered? This car that makes it difficult to remember where you parked it.
Later Work and Return
After this, Tamahori discovered some more interesting form. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured Dominic Cooper in the twin roles of the dictator's hideous son Uday and also Uday’s decoy double, employed to protect the young tyrant-princeling from assassination or kidnapping: it was a punchy, watchable movie which sidestepped typical doppelganger tropes. And in later years, Tamahori went back to the subject of Maori culture, making The Convert in 2023, working with writer his partner. He proved to be an outstanding filmmaker – but it remained his debut, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
