During 1994, the director Lee Tamahori made one of the biggest first films of that era, firing on all six cylinders with the gut-wrenching socially conscious melodrama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes are a working-class indigenous household in South Auckland: Temuera Morrison plays the drinking, fighting, boasting dominant benefit recipient the father, who returns from pub visits with his pathetic sycophant mates to terrorise and abuse his wife Beth, portrayed by Rena Owen, and their five children. He is entirely indifferent to the fate of his two elder sons who have fallen into gang life and illegal activities, including his gentle daughter the girl, who has talent as a storyteller. A son gets gang tattoos; another is taken to a juvenile reformatory where he is at least educated in the traditions of Maori culture – the haka and the taiaha warrior spear – and gains self-worth and self-respect. Meanwhile at Jake’s chaotic house, Grace is assaulted by Jake’s grotesque friend “Bully”; disaster follows, and the mother forcefully challenges the wretched Jake: “Our ancestors used to be fighters, but unlike you, Jake, they were individuals with honor, dignity; people with spirit …”
Raw Emotion and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori unleashed with all this emotional violence, and delivered powerful blows with the pub scenes, domestic moments and the gang ritual initiation scenes, handling them with assurance and verve. He created a bold, sincere picture with a distinctly 90s streak of edginess. It succeeded with audiences and critics, and – for good or ill – deeply impressed studio heads in the film industry who could see how he could apply this energy and flair to commercial projects.
Hollywood Career and Varied Projects
In America, Tamahori made the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who care nothing for procedure, and then a script by Mamet adventure drama The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin as characters who trek through the wilderness after their plane crashes. (This moderate movie became a cult favorite when the producer he wrote humorously about the chaotic circumstances of shooting with an animal actor in his droll tinseltown memoir What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a serviceable thriller, and he earned again directing the second in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie 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 Pierce Brosnan; this was the installment derided for having the worst gadget in 007 history – a cloaked vehicle. What is the point such a car, viewers asked? It was a vehicle that makes it difficult to recall where you parked it.
Subsequent Projects and Return
Following this, the director found some more interesting form. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured Dominic Cooper in dual parts of the dictator's hideous son the character and also his body double, used to protect the heir from assassination or kidnapping: this was a forceful, engaging movie which avoided the usual doppelganger tropes. In subsequent times, he went back to the subject of Maori culture, directing The Convert in 2023, working with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter Shane Danielsen. He proved to be an exceptional director – but it remained his debut, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
