During 1994, this film-maker Lee Tamahori delivered one of the biggest first films of that era, firing on all six cylinders with his gut-wrenching social-realist drama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes represent a working-class Maori household in South Auckland: Temuera Morrison plays the boozing, fighting, bragging alpha-male welfare claimant the father, who comes home from drinking in the pub with his weak followers to terrorise and assault his wife Beth, played by the actress, and their five children. He is entirely indifferent to the fate of his older boys who have fallen into gangland culture and illegal activities, including his gentle daughter the girl, who shows promise as a storyteller. One son gets tattoos; the other is sent to a juvenile reformatory where he is at least tutored in the ways of indigenous heritage – the haka and the taiaha warrior spear – and learns self-worth and pride. But back at Jake’s chaotic house, the daughter is assaulted by a repulsive acquaintance “Bully”; tragedy ensues, and Beth passionately confronts the wretched Jake: “Our ancestors once were warriors, but in contrast to you, they, they were individuals with honor, dignity; soulful beings …”
Raw Emotion and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori unleashed with such intense drama, and delivered powerful blows with the pub scenes, the home scenes and gang initiation rituals, handling them with confidence and energy. He created a bold, sincere film with a distinctly 90s touch of edginess. It was a hit with viewers and reviewers, and – whether positive or negative – deeply impressed industry executives in Hollywood who recognized how Tamahori could bring this energy and flair to mainstream genre material.
Hollywood Career and Diverse Work
Stateside, the director directed 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 trek through wild terrain after a plane crash. (This film gained cult status when the producer he wrote amusingly about the turbulent production of filming with a trained bear in his witty Hollywood book What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a decent suspense film, and he earned again filming the second in the XXX series XXX State of the Union.
Bond Film and Professional Changes
Yet the peak, or maybe the nadir, of Lee Tamahori’s Hollywood career was taking on the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; it was the installment mocked for having the poorest device in the series – a cloaked vehicle. Why would anyone need an invisible car, audiences wondered? This car which makes it very hard to remember its parking spot.
Subsequent Projects and Return
After this, the director discovered some more interesting form. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred the actor in the twin roles of Saddam Hussein’s brutal offspring Uday and as well as his body double, employed to shield the young tyrant-princeling from assassination or abduction: this was a forceful, engaging film which sidestepped typical double cliches. In subsequent times, Tamahori went back to the theme of Maori culture, directing The Convert in 2023, collaborating with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter Shane Danielsen. Tamahori was an outstanding director – but it was his first film, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
