In 1994, the director Lee Tamahori made one of the most significant debuts of that era, operating at full capacity with the heartbreaking social-realist melodrama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes are a blue-collar indigenous family in South Auckland: Temuera Morrison is the boozing, brawling, boasting alpha-male welfare claimant Jake, who returns from drinking in the pub with his pathetic sycophant mates to intimidate and abuse his wife Beth, played by the actress, and their five children. He shows no concern to the fate of his older boys who have drifted into gangland culture and illegal activities, as well as his gentle daughter the girl, who shows promise as a writer. One son gets gang tattoos; the other is taken to a juvenile reformatory where he is partly educated in the ways of Maori culture – the haka and the taiaha warrior spear – and gains dignity and pride. Meanwhile at Jake’s chaotic house, Grace is assaulted by Jake’s grotesque friend “Bully”; tragedy ensues, and Beth forcefully challenges the despicable Jake: “Our people once were warriors, but in contrast to you, Jake, they were individuals with honor, dignity; people with spirit …”
Raw Emotion and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori unleashed with such emotional violence, and delivered powerful blows with bar sequences, domestic moments and gang initiation rituals, directing them with assurance and verve. He crafted a bold, heartfelt film with a very 90s touch of edginess. It was a hit with audiences and reviewers, and – whether positive or negative – deeply impressed industry executives in the film industry who could see how Tamahori could bring this energy and flair to commercial projects.
Hollywood Career and Diverse Work
In America, Tamahori made the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who ignore procedure, and then the David Mamet-scripted survival thriller The Bear with the actor and Alec Baldwin as characters who trek through the wilderness after their plane crashes. (This film became a cult favorite when the producer he wrote amusingly about the chaotic circumstances of filming with an animal actor in his witty Hollywood book What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a serviceable thriller, and he had another payday directing the sequel in the XXX series XXX State of the Union.
Bond Film and Career Shifts
But the high point, or perhaps the nadir, of his Hollywood career was taking on the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; it was the installment derided 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 Return
After this, the director found renewed creativity. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred the actor in dual parts of the dictator's hideous son Uday and also his body double, used to shield the young tyrant-princeling from assassination or abduction: this was a punchy, engaging movie which avoided typical doppelganger tropes. And in later years, he returned to the theme of Maori culture, making The Convert in 2023, collaborating with writer Shane Danielsen. Tamahori was an outstanding director – but it remained his first film, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
