During 1994, this director Lee Tamahori delivered one of the most significant first films of that era, firing on all six cylinders with the gut-wrenching social-realist drama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes represent a working-class indigenous family in South Auckland: Temuera Morrison plays the drinking, fighting, bragging dominant benefit recipient the father, who returns from drinking in the pub with his pathetic sycophant mates to terrorise and assault his wife Beth, played by Rena Owen, and their five children. He is entirely indifferent to the future of his older boys who have fallen into gang life and crime, including his sensitive daughter the girl, who shows promise as a writer. A son receives gang tattoos; another is sent to a juvenile reformatory where he is partly educated in the traditions of Maori culture – the war dance and the traditional weapon – and learns self-worth and pride. But back at Jake’s chaotic house, the daughter is raped by a repulsive acquaintance “Uncle Bully”; disaster follows, and the mother passionately confronts the wretched Jake: “Our ancestors once were warriors, but in contrast to you, they, they were individuals with honor, dignity; soulful beings …”
Raw Emotion and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori unleashed with all this intense drama, and landed sledgehammer punches with bar sequences, domestic moments and the gang ritual initiation scenes, handling them with assurance and verve. He created a bold, sincere film with a distinctly 90s streak of brash and trash. It was a hit with audiences and critics, and – for good or ill – strongly influenced industry executives in the film industry who recognized how Tamahori could bring this energy and flair to mainstream genre material.
Hollywood Career and Varied Projects
In America, Tamahori directed the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who ignore procedure, and then the David Mamet-scripted survival thriller The Bear with the actor and his co-star as two men who trek through the wilderness after a plane crash. (This film gained cult status when its producer he wrote amusingly about the chaotic circumstances of filming with an animal actor in his droll tinseltown memoir What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a decent thriller, and he had another payday filming the sequel in the XXX series XXX State of the Union.
Bond Film and Professional Changes
But the high point, or perhaps the nadir, of his American work was taking on the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; this was the Bond film mocked for having the worst gadget in the series – the invisible car. Why would anyone need an invisible car, audiences wondered? It was a vehicle that makes it difficult to remember where you parked it.
Subsequent Projects and Return
Following this, the director discovered renewed creativity. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured the actor in the twin roles of Saddam Hussein’s brutal offspring Uday and as well as his body double, used to protect the young tyrant-princeling from attack or abduction: this was a punchy, engaging movie which sidestepped typical doppelganger cliches. In subsequent times, he returned to the subject of Maori culture, making The Convert in 2023, collaborating with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter his partner. Tamahori was an outstanding filmmaker – but it was his debut, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
