During 1994, this film-maker Lee Tamahori delivered one of the biggest first films of that era, operating at full capacity with his gut-wrenching social-realist drama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes represent a working-class indigenous household in Auckland's south: Temuera Morrison is the drinking, brawling, boasting alpha-male welfare claimant Jake, who returns from pub visits with his pathetic sycophant mates to intimidate and assault his wife Beth, portrayed by the actress, and their kids. He shows no concern to the future of his two elder sons who have fallen into gangland culture and illegal activities, including his gentle daughter the girl, who shows promise as a writer. One son gets tattoos; another is taken to a juvenile reformatory where he is partly educated in the traditions of indigenous heritage – the war dance and the taiaha warrior spear – and gains dignity and self-respect. Meanwhile at the disordered home, Grace is assaulted by Jake’s grotesque friend “Bully”; tragedy ensues, and the mother passionately confronts the despicable Jake: “Our ancestors once were warriors, but unlike you, they, they were people with mana, pride; soulful beings …”
Emotional Violence and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori unleashed with all this emotional violence, and landed sledgehammer punches with the pub scenes, the home scenes and the gang ritual initiation scenes, directing them with assurance and verve. He crafted a bold, sincere picture with a distinctly 90s touch of brash and trash. It succeeded with audiences and critics, and – for good or ill – deeply impressed studio heads in Hollywood who could see how Tamahori could bring this energy and talent to mainstream genre material.
American Films and Varied Projects
In America, the director made the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who care nothing for protocol, and then a script by Mamet survival thriller The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and his co-star as two men who journey through wild terrain after their plane crashes. (This film became a cult favorite when its producer Art Linson wrote humorously about the chaotic circumstances of shooting with a trained bear in his witty Hollywood book What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a serviceable thriller, and he had another payday directing the second in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Career Shifts
But the high point, or perhaps the nadir, of Lee Tamahori’s Hollywood career 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 – a cloaked vehicle. Why would anyone need an invisible car, viewers asked? It was a vehicle that makes it difficult to remember its parking spot.
Subsequent Projects and Return
After this, Tamahori discovered renewed creativity. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred the actor in the twin roles of the dictator's hideous son Uday and as well as his body double, employed to protect the heir from attack or abduction: this was a forceful, engaging film which sidestepped typical double cliches. In subsequent times, Tamahori returned to the subject of Maori culture, directing The Convert in 2023, collaborating with writer Shane Danielsen. Tamahori was an exceptional filmmaker – but it remained his first film, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
