In 1994, this film-maker Lee Tamahori made one of the biggest debuts of the decade, operating at full capacity with his gut-wrenching social-realist melodrama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes are a blue-collar Maori family in South Auckland: Temuera Morrison is the boozing, fighting, bragging alpha-male benefit recipient the father, who comes home from drinking in the pub with his weak followers to intimidate and assault Beth, his spouse, portrayed by Rena Owen, and their kids. He shows no concern to the fate of his two elder sons who have drifted into gang life and crime, as well as his sensitive daughter Grace, who has talent as a storyteller. One son receives tattoos; the other is sent to a youth detention where he is at least educated in the ways of indigenous heritage – the war dance and the taiaha warrior spear – and gains dignity and self-respect. But back at Jake’s chaotic house, the daughter is assaulted by a repulsive acquaintance “Uncle Bully”; tragedy ensues, and Beth forcefully challenges the despicable Jake: “Our people used to be fighters, but in contrast to you, Jake, they were people with mana, dignity; soulful beings …”
Raw Emotion and Confident Direction
Tamahori let rip with all this intense drama, and delivered powerful blows with bar sequences, domestic moments and gang initiation rituals, directing them with confidence and verve. He created a bold, sincere picture with a distinctly 90s touch of edginess. It succeeded with audiences and critics, and – for good or ill – strongly influenced studio heads in Hollywood who recognized how Tamahori could apply this energy and talent to mainstream genre material.
Hollywood Career and Varied Projects
In America, Tamahori made the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who ignore protocol, and then the David Mamet-scripted survival thriller The Bear with the actor and Alec Baldwin as two men who journey through the wilderness after a plane crash. (This moderate movie became a cult favorite when its producer he wrote amusingly about the turbulent production of shooting with a trained bear in his droll tinseltown memoir What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a serviceable suspense film, and he earned again filming the second in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Professional Changes
Yet the peak, or maybe the nadir, of Lee Tamahori’s Hollywood career was directing the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; it was the Bond film mocked for having the poorest device in the series – the invisible car. What is the point an invisible car, audiences wondered? This car which makes it very hard to remember where you parked it.
Later Work and Return
After this, Tamahori found some more interesting form. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured the actor in the twin roles of Saddam Hussein’s brutal offspring the character and as well as Uday’s decoy double, employed to protect the heir from assassination or abduction: it was a forceful, engaging film which sidestepped the usual double cliches. In subsequent times, Tamahori returned to the subject of Maori culture, directing The Convert in 2023, working with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter his partner. Tamahori was an exceptional filmmaker – but it was his debut, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
