During 1994, this film-maker Lee Tamahori made one of the most significant first films of the decade, firing on all six cylinders with the heartbreaking socially conscious melodrama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes are a working-class Maori family in South Auckland: Temuera Morrison is the boozing, brawling, boasting alpha-male welfare claimant the father, who comes home from drinking in the pub with his weak followers to terrorise and abuse his wife Beth, portrayed by the actress, and their kids. He is entirely indifferent to the fate of his older boys who have drifted into gangland culture and crime, as well as his gentle daughter Grace, who shows promise as a storyteller. A son gets 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 self-respect. But back at the disordered home, Grace is raped by Jake’s grotesque friend “Bully”; disaster follows, and Beth passionately confronts the wretched Jake: “Our people once were warriors, but unlike you, Jake, they were people with mana, pride; people with spirit …”
Raw Emotion and Confident Direction
Tamahori let rip with all this intense drama, and landed sledgehammer punches with bar sequences, domestic moments and the gang ritual initiation scenes, handling them with confidence and verve. He created a bold, sincere picture with a very 90s touch of edginess. It was a hit with audiences and critics, and – for good or ill – strongly influenced studio heads in the film industry who recognized how Tamahori could apply that dynamism and flair to commercial projects.
American Films and Varied Projects
Stateside, the director made the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who care nothing for procedure, and then a script by Mamet adventure drama The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and his co-star as two men who trek through wild terrain after a plane crash. (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 witty Hollywood book What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a decent thriller, and he had another payday directing the second in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Professional Changes
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 mocked for having the worst gadget in the series – the invisible car. What is the point such a car, audiences wondered? It was a vehicle which makes it very hard to remember its parking spot.
Subsequent Projects and Comeback
Following this, Tamahori discovered renewed creativity. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred the actor in the twin roles of the dictator's hideous son Uday and also his body double, used to protect the heir from attack or kidnapping: this was a forceful, watchable movie which avoided typical doppelganger tropes. And in later years, he went back to the theme of indigenous traditions, directing The Convert in 2023, collaborating with writer Shane Danielsen. Tamahori was an exceptional director – but it was his first film, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
