During 1994, this director Lee Tamahori delivered one of the biggest first films of that era, firing on all six cylinders with his heartbreaking socially conscious drama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes represent a blue-collar Maori household in Auckland's south: Temuera Morrison plays the drinking, fighting, bragging alpha-male welfare claimant the father, who comes home from pub visits with his pathetic sycophant mates to intimidate and assault his wife Beth, portrayed by Rena Owen, and their five children. He shows no concern to the future of his older boys who have fallen into gangland culture and crime, as well as his sensitive daughter Grace, who has talent as a writer. One son gets tattoos; another is sent to a youth detention where he is partly tutored in the traditions of indigenous heritage – the war dance and the taiaha warrior spear – and learns dignity and self-respect. Meanwhile at Jake’s chaotic house, the daughter is assaulted by a repulsive acquaintance “Bully”; tragedy ensues, and Beth forcefully challenges the wretched Jake: “Our people used to be fighters, but unlike you, Jake, they were individuals with honor, pride; soulful beings …”
Raw Emotion and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori let rip with all this intense drama, and delivered powerful blows with the pub scenes, the home scenes and the gang ritual initiation scenes, handling them with assurance and verve. He crafted a gutsy, heartfelt film with a distinctly 90s streak of edginess. It succeeded with audiences and critics, and – for good or ill – deeply impressed industry executives in Hollywood who could see how Tamahori could bring this energy and talent to commercial projects.
Hollywood Career and Varied Projects
In America, the director made the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who ignore protocol, and then a script by Mamet adventure drama The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin as characters who journey through wild terrain after their plane crashes. (This moderate movie became a cult favorite when its producer he wrote humorously about the turbulent production of shooting with a trained bear in his droll tinseltown memoir What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a decent suspense film, and he earned again directing the second in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
Bond Film 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 the star; it was the Bond film mocked for having the worst gadget in 007 history – a cloaked vehicle. Why would anyone need such a car, audiences wondered? This car which makes it very hard to remember where you parked it.
Later Work and Return
After this, the director discovered renewed creativity. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured Dominic Cooper in dual parts of the dictator's hideous son Uday and as well as his body double, employed to shield the young tyrant-princeling from assassination or kidnapping: this was a punchy, watchable film which sidestepped the usual doppelganger cliches. And in later years, Tamahori returned to the subject of Maori culture, making The Convert in 2023, working with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter his partner. Tamahori was an outstanding filmmaker – but it was his first film, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
