In 1994, the film-maker Lee Tamahori made one of the biggest debuts of the decade, firing on all six cylinders with his heartbreaking social-realist drama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes represent a working-class Maori household in Auckland's south: the actor is the drinking, brawling, bragging dominant welfare claimant the father, who returns from pub visits with his pathetic sycophant mates to terrorise and abuse Beth, his spouse, portrayed by Rena Owen, and their kids. He shows no concern to the future of his older boys who have fallen into gangland culture and illegal activities, as well as his gentle daughter the girl, who has talent as a storyteller. One son receives gang tattoos; the other is sent to a juvenile reformatory where he is at least tutored in the traditions of indigenous heritage – the haka and the taiaha warrior spear – and gains dignity and pride. Meanwhile at the disordered home, Grace is raped by Jake’s grotesque friend “Bully”; disaster follows, and Beth passionately confronts the wretched Jake: “Our ancestors used to be fighters, but in contrast to you, they, they were people with mana, pride; people with spirit …”
Raw Emotion and Confident Direction
Tamahori let rip with all this emotional violence, and delivered powerful blows with bar sequences, the home scenes and gang initiation rituals, handling them with confidence and verve. He crafted a gutsy, sincere film with a distinctly 90s streak of brash and trash. It succeeded with audiences and reviewers, and – whether positive or negative – deeply impressed studio heads in the film industry who recognized how Tamahori could apply that dynamism and flair to mainstream genre material.
Hollywood Career and Diverse Work
In America, Tamahori directed the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who care nothing for procedure, and then a script by Mamet survival thriller The Bear with the actor and his co-star as two men who journey through wild terrain after a plane crash. (This film gained cult status when the producer Art Linson wrote humorously about the turbulent production of filming with a trained bear in his droll tinseltown memoir What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a serviceable thriller, and he earned again directing the sequel in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Career Shifts
Yet the peak, or perhaps the nadir, of Lee Tamahori’s Hollywood career was taking on the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; this was the installment derided for having the worst gadget in 007 history – a cloaked vehicle. What is the point such a car, audiences wondered? This car which makes it very hard to recall where you parked it.
Later Work and Comeback
Following this, the director discovered some more interesting form. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred Dominic Cooper in the twin roles of Saddam Hussein’s brutal offspring Uday and also Uday’s decoy double, used to shield the heir from attack or kidnapping: it was a forceful, engaging film which sidestepped the usual doppelganger tropes. And in later years, he went back to the subject of indigenous traditions, directing 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.
