In 1994, this director Lee Tamahori made one of the most significant debuts of that era, firing on all six cylinders with his gut-wrenching social-realist drama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes are a working-class indigenous family in South Auckland: Temuera Morrison is the boozing, brawling, bragging alpha-male welfare claimant the father, who comes home from pub visits with his pathetic sycophant mates to terrorise and abuse his wife Beth, portrayed by the actress, and their five children. He shows no concern to the fate of his two elder sons who have fallen into gang life and illegal activities, as well as his gentle daughter Grace, who shows promise as a writer. One son receives tattoos; the other is sent to a youth detention where he is partly tutored in the traditions of Maori culture – the war dance and the taiaha warrior spear – and gains dignity and pride. But back at Jake’s chaotic house, the daughter is raped by Jake’s grotesque friend “Bully”; disaster follows, and the mother forcefully challenges the despicable Jake: “Our people once were warriors, but unlike you, Jake, they were individuals with honor, dignity; people with spirit …”
Emotional Violence and Confident Direction
Tamahori unleashed with all this emotional violence, and delivered powerful blows with bar sequences, the home scenes and gang initiation rituals, directing them with assurance and energy. He created a gutsy, heartfelt picture with a distinctly 90s touch of brash and trash. It was a hit with viewers and reviewers, and – whether positive or negative – strongly influenced studio heads in the film industry who recognized how Tamahori could apply that dynamism and talent to mainstream genre material.
Hollywood Career and Varied Projects
Stateside, the director directed the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who care nothing for protocol, and then the David Mamet-scripted survival thriller The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and his co-star as two men who journey through wild terrain after a plane crash. (This moderate movie gained cult status when its producer Art Linson wrote amusingly about the chaotic circumstances of shooting with a trained bear in his witty Hollywood book What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a serviceable thriller, and he had another payday filming the sequel in the XXX series XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Professional Changes
But the high point, or perhaps 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 007 history – the invisible car. What is the point an invisible car, audiences wondered? It was a vehicle that makes it difficult to remember its parking spot.
Later Work and Return
After this, the director found renewed creativity. His 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, employed to protect the young tyrant-princeling from attack or kidnapping: this was a forceful, engaging movie which avoided the usual double tropes. In subsequent times, Tamahori returned to the theme of indigenous traditions, making The Convert in 2023, collaborating with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter Shane Danielsen. He proved to be an outstanding filmmaker – but it was his first film, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
