In 1994, this director Lee Tamahori made one of the most significant first films of the decade, operating at full capacity with his heartbreaking socially conscious melodrama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes represent a blue-collar Maori household in South Auckland: Temuera Morrison plays the boozing, fighting, boasting alpha-male benefit recipient Jake, who comes home from pub visits with his weak followers to terrorise and abuse his wife Beth, portrayed by Rena Owen, and their five children. He shows no concern to the fate of his two elder sons who have drifted into gang life and illegal activities, as well as his sensitive daughter the girl, who shows promise as a writer. One 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 self-worth and self-respect. Meanwhile at Jake’s chaotic house, Grace is assaulted by a repulsive acquaintance “Bully”; tragedy ensues, and Beth forcefully challenges the wretched Jake: “Our people once were warriors, but unlike you, they, they were people with mana, dignity; people with spirit …”
Raw Emotion and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori let rip with such intense drama, and delivered powerful blows with the pub scenes, the home scenes and the gang ritual initiation scenes, directing them with assurance and verve. He crafted a gutsy, heartfelt picture with a very 90s touch of edginess. It succeeded with audiences and reviewers, and – whether positive or negative – deeply impressed industry executives in Hollywood who recognized how Tamahori could apply 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 care nothing for protocol, and then the David Mamet-scripted adventure drama The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin as two men who journey through the wilderness after their plane crashes. (This moderate movie gained cult status when its producer Art Linson wrote amusingly about the turbulent production of shooting with an animal actor in his droll tinseltown memoir What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a serviceable suspense film, and he earned again directing 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 directing the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; this was the installment derided for having the worst gadget in the series – the invisible car. What is the point such a car, viewers asked? It was a vehicle that makes it difficult to recall its parking spot.
Later Work and Comeback
After this, the director found renewed creativity. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured the actor in the twin roles of the dictator's hideous son the character and also Uday’s decoy double, employed to protect the young tyrant-princeling from assassination or kidnapping: this was a punchy, watchable film which sidestepped typical double tropes. In subsequent times, Tamahori went back to the subject of indigenous traditions, directing The Convert in 2023, collaborating with writer Shane Danielsen. He proved to be an exceptional director – but it remained his first film, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
