In 1994, the director Lee Tamahori delivered one of the biggest first films of the decade, firing on all six cylinders with the gut-wrenching social-realist drama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes represent a blue-collar Maori family in South Auckland: the actor plays the drinking, brawling, boasting alpha-male welfare claimant Jake, who returns from pub visits with his pathetic sycophant mates to terrorise and abuse his wife Beth, portrayed by Rena Owen, and their kids. He shows no concern to the future of his two elder sons who have drifted into gang life and illegal activities, including his sensitive daughter Grace, who shows promise as a storyteller. A son receives tattoos; another is taken to a youth detention where he is partly tutored in the traditions of Maori culture – the haka and the traditional weapon – and gains self-worth and self-respect. Meanwhile at the disordered home, the daughter is raped by Jake’s grotesque friend “Bully”; disaster follows, and the mother passionately confronts the wretched Jake: “Our ancestors once were warriors, but unlike you, Jake, they were individuals with honor, dignity; soulful beings …”
Emotional Violence and Confident Direction
Tamahori unleashed with all this emotional violence, and landed sledgehammer punches with bar sequences, the home scenes and gang initiation rituals, handling them with confidence and verve. He crafted a bold, heartfelt film with a distinctly 90s streak of brash and trash. It was a hit with audiences and critics, and – whether positive or negative – strongly influenced studio heads in Hollywood who recognized how he could bring this energy and talent to mainstream genre material.
American Films and Diverse Work
Stateside, Tamahori directed the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who ignore procedure, and then a script by Mamet adventure drama The Bear with the actor and his co-star as two men who trek through the wilderness after their plane crashes. (This moderate movie became a cult favorite when its producer Art Linson wrote amusingly about the turbulent production of filming with a trained bear in his droll tinseltown memoir What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a decent thriller, and he earned again filming the sequel in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
Bond Film and Professional Changes
Yet the peak, or maybe the nadir, of Lee Tamahori’s American work was directing the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; it was the Bond film mocked for having the poorest device in the series – a cloaked vehicle. What is the point an invisible car, audiences wondered? It was a vehicle that makes it difficult to recall where you parked it.
Subsequent Projects and Return
After this, the director found renewed creativity. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred Dominic Cooper in dual parts of the dictator's brutal offspring the character and also Uday’s decoy double, used to protect the heir from assassination or abduction: this was a forceful, watchable movie which avoided the usual doppelganger tropes. In subsequent times, Tamahori returned to the subject of indigenous traditions, making The Convert in 2023, collaborating with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter his partner. He proved to be an outstanding filmmaker – but it remained his debut, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
