In 1994, the director Lee Tamahori made one of the biggest debuts of the decade, operating at full capacity with his gut-wrenching socially conscious drama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes are a blue-collar Maori household in South Auckland: Temuera Morrison is the boozing, brawling, bragging dominant benefit recipient Jake, who comes home from pub visits with his pathetic sycophant mates to terrorise and abuse Beth, his spouse, played by Rena Owen, and their kids. He shows no concern to the future of his two elder sons who have fallen into gang life and crime, as well as his gentle daughter Grace, who shows promise as a writer. One son gets gang tattoos; another is taken to a juvenile reformatory where he is partly tutored in the ways of indigenous heritage – the war dance and the traditional weapon – and gains dignity and pride. But back at Jake’s chaotic house, the daughter is assaulted by a repulsive acquaintance “Bully”; disaster follows, and the mother passionately confronts the despicable Jake: “Our ancestors once were warriors, but unlike you, they, they were individuals with honor, pride; people with spirit …”
Emotional Violence and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori let rip with all this intense drama, and delivered powerful blows with bar sequences, the home scenes and the gang ritual initiation scenes, directing them with confidence and verve. He created a gutsy, heartfelt picture with a distinctly 90s streak of edginess. It was a hit with viewers and critics, and – whether positive or negative – strongly influenced studio heads in the film industry who recognized how he could bring this energy and talent to mainstream genre material.
American Films and Varied Projects
In America, the director directed the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who ignore protocol, and then a script by Mamet survival thriller The Bear with the actor and Alec Baldwin as two men who journey through wild terrain after a plane crash. (This film gained cult status when the producer Art Linson wrote humorously about the turbulent production of filming with an animal actor in his droll tinseltown memoir What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a serviceable suspense film, and he earned again directing the sequel in the XXX series XXX State of the Union.
Bond Film and Professional Changes
But the high point, or perhaps the nadir, of his American work was taking on the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; it was the installment derided for having the poorest device in 007 history – a cloaked vehicle. Why would anyone need such a car, audiences wondered? It was a vehicle which makes it very hard to recall its parking spot.
Subsequent Projects and Comeback
Following this, the director found renewed creativity. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred the actor in dual parts of the dictator's hideous son Uday and also his body double, employed to protect the young tyrant-princeling from assassination or abduction: this was a forceful, watchable movie which avoided typical double tropes. And in later years, Tamahori returned to the subject of Maori culture, making The Convert in 2023, working with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter Shane Danielsen. Tamahori was an outstanding filmmaker – but it was his first film, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
