During 1994, the director Lee Tamahori delivered one of the most significant debuts of the decade, firing on all six cylinders with his gut-wrenching social-realist melodrama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes are a blue-collar indigenous family in South Auckland: Temuera Morrison is the drinking, brawling, boasting alpha-male benefit recipient the father, who returns from pub visits with his pathetic sycophant mates to intimidate and abuse Beth, his spouse, portrayed by the actress, and their kids. He is entirely indifferent to the future of his older boys who have fallen into gang life and illegal activities, including his gentle daughter the girl, who has talent as a writer. A son receives gang tattoos; another is sent to a juvenile reformatory where he is at least educated in the ways of Maori culture – the war dance and the traditional weapon – and gains dignity and pride. Meanwhile at the disordered home, the daughter is raped by Jake’s grotesque friend “Uncle Bully”; tragedy ensues, and the mother forcefully challenges the wretched Jake: “Our people once were warriors, but unlike you, Jake, they were individuals with honor, pride; soulful beings …”
Raw Emotion and Confident Direction
Tamahori unleashed with such emotional violence, and delivered powerful blows with bar sequences, domestic moments and gang initiation rituals, handling them with confidence and verve. He created a gutsy, heartfelt film with a distinctly 90s streak of edginess. It was a hit with viewers and reviewers, and – whether positive or negative – deeply impressed studio heads in Hollywood who could see how Tamahori could bring that dynamism and flair to commercial projects.
Hollywood Career and Varied Projects
In America, the director directed the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who care nothing for procedure, and then a script by Mamet survival thriller The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin as two men who trek through the wilderness after their plane crashes. (This moderate movie gained cult status when the producer Art Linson wrote humorously about the turbulent production of shooting with an animal actor in his droll tinseltown memoir What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a serviceable suspense film, and he had another payday directing the sequel in the XXX series XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Career Shifts
But the high point, or perhaps the low point, of Lee Tamahori’s American work was taking on the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; this was the installment mocked for having the worst gadget in the series – the invisible car. Why would anyone need an invisible car, audiences wondered? It was a vehicle which makes it very hard to remember its parking spot.
Subsequent Projects and Comeback
Following this, Tamahori found some more interesting form. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred Dominic Cooper in the twin roles of Saddam Hussein’s brutal offspring Uday and also Uday’s decoy double, used to shield the young tyrant-princeling from attack or abduction: it was a forceful, engaging movie which avoided typical double tropes. And in later years, Tamahori returned to the theme of Maori culture, directing The Convert in 2023, working with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter Shane Danielsen. Tamahori was an exceptional filmmaker – but it remained his debut, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
