During 1994, this film-maker Lee Tamahori made one of the biggest debuts of that era, operating at full capacity with his gut-wrenching social-realist melodrama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes are a working-class indigenous household in South Auckland: Temuera Morrison is the drinking, fighting, bragging dominant benefit recipient the father, who comes home from drinking in the pub with his pathetic sycophant mates to terrorise and abuse Beth, his spouse, played by the actress, and their five children. He is entirely indifferent to the future of his older boys who have fallen into gang life and crime, as well as his sensitive daughter Grace, who shows promise as a writer. One son gets gang tattoos; the other is taken to a youth detention where he is partly educated in the traditions of indigenous heritage – the war dance and the traditional weapon – and gains self-worth and pride. Meanwhile at Jake’s chaotic house, the daughter is raped by Jake’s grotesque friend “Uncle Bully”; tragedy ensues, and Beth passionately confronts the wretched Jake: “Our ancestors used to be fighters, but unlike you, Jake, they were people with mana, dignity; people with spirit …”
Emotional Violence and Confident Direction
Tamahori unleashed with all this intense drama, and landed sledgehammer punches with bar sequences, the home scenes and the gang ritual initiation scenes, handling them with confidence and energy. He created a bold, heartfelt picture with a very 90s streak of edginess. It was a hit with audiences and critics, and – for good or ill – deeply impressed industry executives in Hollywood who could see how Tamahori could apply this energy and talent to mainstream genre material.
American Films and Varied Projects
Stateside, Tamahori directed the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who care nothing for procedure, and then the David Mamet-scripted survival thriller The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and his co-star as two men who trek through wild terrain after a plane crash. (This moderate movie became a cult favorite when the producer he wrote amusingly 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 had another payday filming the second in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
Bond Film and Career Shifts
But the high point, or perhaps the low point, of Lee Tamahori’s American work was taking on the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; this was the installment derided for having the worst gadget in 007 history – a cloaked vehicle. Why would anyone need such a car, viewers asked? It was a vehicle that makes it difficult to recall where you parked it.
Subsequent Projects and Comeback
Following this, Tamahori found renewed creativity. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured 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 attack or kidnapping: this was a punchy, engaging movie which sidestepped typical double tropes. In subsequent times, Tamahori returned to the theme of Maori culture, directing The Convert in 2023, collaborating with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter Shane Danielsen. He proved to be an outstanding director – but it remained his debut, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
