During 1994, this film-maker Lee Tamahori made one of the biggest first films of that era, operating at full capacity with his heartbreaking social-realist melodrama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes are a blue-collar indigenous family in Auckland's south: Temuera Morrison plays the boozing, fighting, boasting dominant benefit recipient Jake, who comes home from drinking in the pub with his pathetic sycophant mates to terrorise and assault Beth, his spouse, played by Rena Owen, and their kids. He is entirely indifferent to the future of his two elder sons who have fallen into gang life and illegal activities, as well as his sensitive daughter the girl, who has talent as a writer. A son receives gang tattoos; the other is sent to a juvenile reformatory where he is at least tutored in the ways of indigenous heritage – the war dance and the taiaha warrior spear – and learns dignity and pride. But back at the disordered home, the daughter is raped by Jake’s grotesque friend “Bully”; tragedy ensues, and Beth passionately confronts the wretched Jake: “Our people once were warriors, but in contrast to you, Jake, they were individuals with honor, dignity; soulful beings …”
Raw Emotion and Confident Direction
Tamahori let rip with such emotional violence, and landed sledgehammer punches with the pub scenes, the home scenes and the gang ritual initiation scenes, handling them with assurance and energy. He crafted a bold, heartfelt film with a distinctly 90s streak of edginess. It succeeded with viewers and critics, and – for good or ill – deeply impressed studio heads in Hollywood who could see how Tamahori could apply that dynamism and flair to mainstream genre material.
Hollywood Career and Varied Projects
Stateside, Tamahori made the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who ignore procedure, and then a script by Mamet survival thriller The Bear with the actor and Alec Baldwin as two men who trek through wild terrain after a plane crash. (This moderate movie became a cult favorite when its producer he wrote humorously about the chaotic circumstances of shooting with a trained bear in his droll tinseltown memoir What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a serviceable thriller, and he had another payday filming the second in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Professional Changes
But the high point, or perhaps the nadir, of his American work was directing the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; it was the installment mocked for having the poorest device in the series – a cloaked vehicle. Why would anyone need such a car, viewers asked? It was a vehicle that makes it difficult to remember where you parked it.
Later Work and Return
Following this, Tamahori found renewed creativity. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured Dominic Cooper in dual parts of Saddam Hussein’s brutal offspring the character and also Uday’s decoy double, used to shield the young tyrant-princeling from assassination or kidnapping: it was a punchy, engaging movie which sidestepped typical doppelganger tropes. And in later years, Tamahori went back to the theme of indigenous traditions, directing The Convert in 2023, working with writer his partner. He proved to be an exceptional filmmaker – but it was his debut, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
