During 1994, this director Lee Tamahori made one of the most significant debuts of the decade, firing on all six cylinders with his heartbreaking social-realist drama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes are a working-class Maori household in Auckland's south: Temuera Morrison plays the boozing, fighting, bragging alpha-male benefit recipient Jake, who returns from pub visits with his weak followers to terrorise and abuse Beth, his spouse, portrayed by the actress, and their kids. He is entirely indifferent to the future of his two elder sons who have drifted into gang life and crime, including his sensitive daughter Grace, who shows promise as a storyteller. A son receives tattoos; another is taken to a youth detention where he is partly educated in the ways of Maori culture – the haka and the taiaha warrior spear – and learns self-worth and pride. Meanwhile at the disordered home, the daughter is assaulted by a repulsive acquaintance “Bully”; disaster follows, and the mother forcefully challenges the wretched Jake: “Our ancestors used to be fighters, but unlike you, Jake, they were people with mana, 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 crafted a bold, sincere film with a distinctly 90s streak of brash and trash. It succeeded with audiences and reviewers, and – whether positive or negative – deeply impressed industry executives in Hollywood who could see how he could bring this energy and talent to commercial projects.
Hollywood Career and Varied Projects
In America, Tamahori directed the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who ignore procedure, and then the David Mamet-scripted adventure drama The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and his co-star as two men who journey through wild terrain after a plane crash. (This film became a cult favorite when the producer he 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 directing the second in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
Bond Film and Professional Changes
But the high point, or maybe the nadir, of his Hollywood career was directing the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; this was the Bond film mocked for having the worst gadget in 007 history – the invisible car. Why would anyone need an invisible car, audiences wondered? This car which makes it very hard to remember its parking spot.
Later Work and Return
Following this, Tamahori found renewed creativity. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred the actor in dual parts of Saddam Hussein’s hideous son the character and as well as his body double, employed to protect the heir from attack or abduction: this was a forceful, watchable film which avoided the usual double cliches. In subsequent times, he went back to the subject of indigenous traditions, making The Convert in 2023, working with writer Shane Danielsen. He proved to be an exceptional director – but it remained his first film, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
