During 1994, this film-maker Lee Tamahori made one of the most significant first films of that era, firing on all six cylinders with his heartbreaking socially conscious drama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes are a working-class indigenous family in South Auckland: Temuera Morrison is the boozing, brawling, boasting dominant welfare claimant Jake, who comes home from pub visits with his weak followers to terrorise and abuse Beth, his spouse, portrayed by the actress, and their five children. He is entirely indifferent to the future of his older boys who have drifted into gang life and illegal activities, including his sensitive daughter the girl, who shows promise as a storyteller. A son receives tattoos; the other is taken to a youth detention where he is partly educated in the ways of indigenous heritage – the war dance and the taiaha warrior spear – and gains dignity and pride. Meanwhile at the disordered home, the daughter is assaulted by Jake’s grotesque friend “Uncle Bully”; disaster follows, and the mother passionately confronts the despicable Jake: “Our ancestors once were warriors, but in contrast to you, they, they were people with mana, dignity; people with spirit …”
Raw Emotion and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori unleashed with all this emotional violence, and landed sledgehammer punches with the pub scenes, domestic moments and gang initiation rituals, handling them with confidence and energy. He created a gutsy, heartfelt film with a very 90s touch of edginess. It succeeded with viewers and reviewers, and – for good or ill – strongly influenced studio heads in Hollywood who could see how Tamahori could bring that dynamism and flair to commercial projects.
American Films and Diverse Work
In America, Tamahori directed the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who care nothing for protocol, and then the David Mamet-scripted adventure drama The Bear with the actor and Alec Baldwin as two men who trek through the wilderness after a plane crash. (This moderate movie gained cult status when the producer Art Linson wrote humorously about the chaotic circumstances of filming with a trained bear in his witty Hollywood book What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a decent suspense film, and he had another payday directing the second in the XXX series XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Professional Changes
But the high point, or perhaps the nadir, of Lee Tamahori’s American work was directing the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; it was the installment mocked for having the worst gadget in the series – a cloaked vehicle. Why would anyone need such a car, viewers asked? This car which makes it very hard to remember its parking spot.
Subsequent Projects and Return
After this, Tamahori found renewed creativity. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred Dominic Cooper in dual parts of Saddam Hussein’s brutal offspring Uday and also his body double, employed to shield the heir from assassination or kidnapping: it was a forceful, watchable film which avoided the usual double tropes. And in later years, Tamahori returned to the theme of Maori culture, making The Convert in 2023, working with writer his partner. He proved to be an exceptional director – but it was his debut, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
