In 1994, the director Lee Tamahori delivered one of the biggest debuts of that era, operating at full capacity with the heartbreaking socially conscious drama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes are a working-class indigenous household in South Auckland: the actor plays the boozing, fighting, boasting alpha-male welfare claimant the father, who comes home from pub visits with his weak followers to terrorise and abuse his wife Beth, played by Rena Owen, and their kids. He shows no concern to the fate of his older boys who have drifted into gang life and illegal activities, as well as his gentle daughter Grace, who has talent as a storyteller. A son receives gang tattoos; the other is sent to a youth detention where he is partly educated in the ways of Maori culture – the haka and the traditional weapon – and gains dignity and pride. But back at the disordered home, Grace is assaulted by Jake’s grotesque friend “Uncle Bully”; disaster follows, and the mother forcefully challenges the wretched Jake: “Our people once were warriors, but unlike you, Jake, they were individuals with honor, pride; people with spirit …”
Raw Emotion and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori unleashed with such intense drama, and delivered powerful blows with bar sequences, domestic moments and gang initiation rituals, handling them with confidence and verve. He created a bold, sincere picture with a distinctly 90s touch of edginess. It succeeded with viewers and critics, and – whether positive or negative – strongly influenced studio heads in the film industry who could see how he could bring that dynamism and flair to mainstream genre material.
Hollywood Career and Varied Projects
Stateside, 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 Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin as two men who trek through wild terrain after their plane crashes. (This film became a cult favorite when the producer Art Linson wrote humorously about the chaotic circumstances of filming with an animal actor in his droll tinseltown memoir 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.
Bond Film and Professional Changes
But the high point, or maybe the low point, of Lee Tamahori’s Hollywood career was taking on the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; it was the installment derided for having the poorest device in the series – a cloaked vehicle. What is the point an invisible car, audiences wondered? This car which makes it very hard to recall where you parked it.
Subsequent Projects and Return
After this, Tamahori found some more interesting form. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured Dominic Cooper in dual parts of the dictator's hideous son the character and also his body double, used to protect the heir from assassination or kidnapping: this was a forceful, engaging movie which sidestepped the usual doppelganger tropes. In subsequent times, he went back to the theme of Maori culture, making The Convert in 2023, collaborating with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter Shane Danielsen. Tamahori was an exceptional director – but it remained his first film, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
