In 1994, the film-maker Lee Tamahori made one of the biggest first films of the decade, firing on all six cylinders with his heartbreaking socially conscious melodrama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes are a working-class Maori family in Auckland's south: the actor is the boozing, fighting, bragging alpha-male welfare claimant Jake, who returns from drinking in the pub with his pathetic sycophant mates to terrorise and abuse Beth, his spouse, played by Rena Owen, and their five children. He is entirely indifferent to the fate of his older boys who have drifted into gang life and illegal activities, including his sensitive daughter Grace, who shows promise as a storyteller. A son gets gang tattoos; the other is taken to a juvenile reformatory where he is partly tutored in the traditions of Maori culture – the haka and the traditional weapon – and gains dignity and pride. Meanwhile at Jake’s chaotic house, Grace is assaulted by Jake’s grotesque friend “Uncle Bully”; disaster follows, and the mother passionately confronts the despicable Jake: “Our people once were warriors, but unlike you, they, they were people with mana, pride; soulful beings …”
Emotional Violence and Confident Direction
Tamahori let rip with such emotional violence, and delivered powerful blows with bar sequences, the home scenes and the gang ritual initiation scenes, directing them with assurance and verve. He created a bold, heartfelt film with a very 90s streak of edginess. It was a hit with audiences and reviewers, and – whether positive or negative – strongly influenced industry executives in the film industry who could see how he could apply that dynamism 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 procedure, and then a script by Mamet adventure drama The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin as two men who journey through wild terrain after a plane crash. (This film became a cult favorite when its producer he wrote amusingly about the chaotic circumstances of filming with an animal actor in his droll tinseltown memoir What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a serviceable thriller, and he had another payday directing the sequel in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Professional Changes
But the high point, or maybe the nadir, of Lee Tamahori’s Hollywood career was directing the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; this was the Bond film derided for having the worst gadget in the series – a cloaked vehicle. What is the point such a car, audiences wondered? This car which makes it very hard to recall its parking spot.
Subsequent Projects and Comeback
After this, Tamahori found renewed creativity. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured Dominic Cooper in dual parts of the dictator's brutal offspring the character and also Uday’s decoy double, used to shield the heir from attack or abduction: this was a forceful, watchable movie which sidestepped the usual doppelganger tropes. In subsequent times, he returned to the subject of Maori culture, directing The Convert in 2023, working with writer Shane Danielsen. Tamahori was an outstanding filmmaker – but it remained his debut, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
