In 1994, the film-maker Lee Tamahori made one of the biggest debuts of the decade, operating at full capacity with his heartbreaking social-realist drama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes are a working-class Maori family in Auckland's south: Temuera Morrison plays the boozing, fighting, bragging dominant benefit recipient Jake, who comes home from pub visits with his weak followers to intimidate and assault his wife Beth, portrayed by Rena Owen, and their five children. He shows no concern to the future of his two elder sons who have fallen into gangland culture and crime, including his gentle daughter the girl, who has talent as a writer. A son gets tattoos; the other is sent to a juvenile reformatory where he is at least tutored in the ways of Maori culture – the war dance and the taiaha warrior spear – and learns self-worth and pride. But back at Jake’s chaotic house, Grace is raped by Jake’s grotesque friend “Uncle Bully”; disaster follows, and the mother passionately confronts the despicable Jake: “Our people used to be fighters, but unlike you, Jake, they were individuals with honor, pride; people with spirit …”
Raw Emotion and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori unleashed with all this intense drama, and delivered powerful blows with the pub scenes, the home scenes and gang initiation rituals, directing them with assurance and energy. He crafted a bold, heartfelt film with a distinctly 90s touch of brash and trash. It succeeded with audiences and critics, and – for good or ill – deeply impressed industry executives in the film industry who recognized how he could bring that dynamism and flair to commercial projects.
American Films and Varied Projects
Stateside, Tamahori directed the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who ignore protocol, and then a script by Mamet adventure drama The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and his co-star as two men who trek through the wilderness after their plane crashes. (This film gained cult status when the producer he wrote amusingly about the chaotic circumstances of filming with a trained bear in his droll tinseltown memoir What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a serviceable suspense film, and he earned again filming the second in the XXX series XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Career Shifts
But the high point, or maybe the low point, of his Hollywood career was taking on the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; this was the Bond film mocked for having the worst gadget in the series – a cloaked vehicle. Why would anyone need such a car, viewers asked? It was a vehicle that makes it difficult to recall its parking spot.
Subsequent Projects and Return
After this, the director discovered some more interesting form. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred Dominic Cooper in dual parts of Saddam Hussein’s hideous son the character and also his body double, used to protect the heir from attack or kidnapping: it was a punchy, watchable film which sidestepped the usual doppelganger tropes. And in later years, Tamahori went back to the theme of Maori culture, making The Convert in 2023, collaborating with writer his partner. Tamahori was an outstanding filmmaker – but it was his debut, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
