In 1994, the film-maker Lee Tamahori delivered one of the most significant debuts of that era, operating at full capacity with the heartbreaking social-realist melodrama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes are a working-class Maori family in South Auckland: the actor is the drinking, brawling, boasting dominant welfare claimant Jake, who comes home from drinking in the pub with his pathetic sycophant mates to terrorise and assault his wife Beth, played by Rena Owen, and their five children. He is entirely indifferent to the fate of his older boys who have drifted into gangland culture and crime, including his gentle daughter Grace, who shows promise as a storyteller. A son receives gang tattoos; another is taken to a youth detention where he is at least tutored in the ways of Maori culture – the war dance and the taiaha warrior spear – and gains self-worth and self-respect. But back at the disordered home, the daughter is assaulted by Jake’s grotesque friend “Bully”; disaster follows, and the mother forcefully challenges the despicable Jake: “Our people used to be fighters, but in contrast to you, Jake, they were individuals with honor, pride; people with spirit …”
Emotional Violence and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori unleashed with all this emotional violence, and delivered powerful blows with bar sequences, domestic moments and gang initiation rituals, directing them with confidence and verve. He created a bold, sincere film with a distinctly 90s streak of edginess. It was a hit with viewers and reviewers, and – whether positive or negative – strongly influenced industry executives in Hollywood who recognized how he could apply this energy and talent to mainstream genre material.
American Films and Diverse Work
Stateside, the director directed the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who care nothing for procedure, and then the David Mamet-scripted adventure drama The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and his co-star as two men who trek through wild terrain after their plane crashes. (This film became a cult favorite when the producer he wrote amusingly about the chaotic circumstances of filming with a trained bear in his droll tinseltown memoir What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a decent thriller, and he had another payday directing the second in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Career Shifts
Yet the peak, or maybe the nadir, 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 poorest device in the series – the invisible car. What is the point such a car, viewers asked? It was a vehicle that makes it difficult to remember where you parked it.
Subsequent Projects and Comeback
Following this, Tamahori discovered renewed creativity. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred Dominic Cooper in dual parts of the dictator's hideous son Uday and as well as his body double, used to protect the young tyrant-princeling from attack or kidnapping: it was a forceful, watchable film which sidestepped typical doppelganger tropes. And in later years, he returned to the theme of Maori culture, directing The Convert in 2023, collaborating with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter his partner. Tamahori was an exceptional director – but it was his first film, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
