In 1994, the film-maker Lee Tamahori made one of the most significant first films of the decade, firing on all six cylinders with the heartbreaking socially conscious melodrama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes are a working-class Maori family in South Auckland: Temuera Morrison is the boozing, fighting, boasting alpha-male benefit recipient the father, who comes home from pub visits with his pathetic sycophant mates to intimidate and abuse Beth, his spouse, played by Rena Owen, and their five children. He shows no concern to the fate of his older boys who have fallen into gang life and illegal activities, including his sensitive daughter the girl, who has talent as a writer. One son receives 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 gains self-worth and self-respect. Meanwhile at Jake’s chaotic house, the daughter is raped by Jake’s grotesque friend “Uncle Bully”; tragedy ensues, and the mother forcefully challenges the wretched Jake: “Our people once were warriors, but unlike you, they, they were individuals with honor, dignity; people with spirit …”
Emotional Violence and Confident Direction
Tamahori let rip with all this emotional violence, and delivered powerful blows with the pub scenes, domestic moments and gang initiation rituals, directing them with assurance and verve. He crafted a gutsy, heartfelt film with a very 90s streak of edginess. It succeeded with viewers and reviewers, and – for good or ill – deeply impressed studio heads in the film industry who recognized how he could bring that dynamism and talent to commercial projects.
American Films and Varied Projects
In America, the director directed the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who ignore protocol, and then the David Mamet-scripted adventure drama The Bear with the actor and Alec Baldwin as characters who journey through the wilderness after their plane crashes. (This film became a cult favorite when the producer he wrote amusingly about the turbulent production of shooting with a trained bear in his witty Hollywood book What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a decent thriller, and he earned again filming the second in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Professional Changes
Yet the peak, or perhaps the nadir, of Lee Tamahori’s Hollywood career was directing the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; this was the Bond film derided for having the poorest device in 007 history – the invisible car. Why would anyone need such a car, audiences wondered? This car that makes it difficult to recall its parking spot.
Later Work and Comeback
Following this, Tamahori found 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 also Uday’s decoy double, used to protect the young tyrant-princeling from attack or kidnapping: this was a forceful, engaging film which avoided typical double cliches. And in later years, he went back to the subject of Maori culture, making The Convert in 2023, working with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter Shane Danielsen. Tamahori was an exceptional director – but it remained his debut, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
