During 1994, the film-maker Lee Tamahori delivered one of the most significant debuts of the decade, firing on all six cylinders with the gut-wrenching social-realist melodrama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes represent a blue-collar indigenous family in Auckland's south: the actor plays the boozing, fighting, boasting alpha-male welfare claimant Jake, who returns from pub visits with his pathetic sycophant mates to terrorise and abuse his wife Beth, portrayed by Rena Owen, and their kids. He is entirely indifferent to the fate of his two elder sons who have drifted into gang life and illegal activities, as well as his sensitive daughter Grace, who has talent as a writer. One son receives tattoos; another is taken to a youth detention where he is partly educated in the traditions of Maori culture – the war dance and the taiaha warrior spear – and learns dignity and self-respect. Meanwhile at Jake’s chaotic house, the daughter is assaulted by Jake’s grotesque friend “Bully”; tragedy ensues, 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 Confident Direction
Tamahori let rip with such emotional violence, and delivered powerful blows with bar sequences, the home scenes and gang initiation rituals, directing them with assurance and verve. He created a gutsy, heartfelt picture with a distinctly 90s streak of brash and trash. It succeeded with viewers and reviewers, and – for good or ill – deeply impressed studio heads in Hollywood who could see how he could bring that dynamism and flair to commercial projects.
Hollywood Career and Varied Projects
In America, the director made the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who ignore procedure, and then the David Mamet-scripted adventure drama The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and his co-star as characters who journey through wild terrain after a plane crash. (This film gained cult status when the producer he wrote amusingly 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 earned again directing the second in the XXX series XXX State of the Union.
Bond Film and Professional Changes
Yet the peak, or maybe the low point, of Lee Tamahori’s Hollywood career was taking on the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; this was the installment mocked for having the worst gadget in the series – a cloaked vehicle. What is the point such a car, audiences wondered? This car which makes it very hard to recall its parking spot.
Later Work and Return
Following this, Tamahori found some more interesting form. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred the actor in dual parts of Saddam Hussein’s brutal offspring the character and as well as Uday’s decoy double, used to shield the young tyrant-princeling from assassination or abduction: it was a forceful, watchable film which sidestepped typical double cliches. In subsequent times, he returned to the subject of Maori culture, making The Convert in 2023, collaborating with writer Shane Danielsen. He proved to be an outstanding director – but it was his first film, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
