During 1994, this film-maker Lee Tamahori made one of the most significant first films of that era, firing on all six cylinders with his heartbreaking socially conscious drama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes represent a working-class indigenous household in South Auckland: the actor is the boozing, brawling, boasting dominant welfare claimant the father, who returns from drinking in the pub with his weak followers to terrorise and abuse 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 gang life and illegal activities, including his gentle daughter the girl, who has talent as a storyteller. One son receives gang tattoos; another is taken to a youth detention where he is partly educated in the traditions of Maori culture – the war dance and the traditional weapon – and gains dignity and self-respect. Meanwhile at Jake’s chaotic house, the daughter is raped by a repulsive acquaintance “Bully”; tragedy ensues, and the mother forcefully challenges the despicable Jake: “Our ancestors once were warriors, but unlike you, they, they were individuals with honor, dignity; soulful beings …”
Raw Emotion and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori let rip with such emotional violence, and landed sledgehammer punches with bar sequences, domestic moments and the gang ritual initiation scenes, handling them with confidence and energy. He created a gutsy, sincere film with a very 90s streak of edginess. It was a hit with viewers and critics, and – whether positive or negative – deeply impressed industry executives in Hollywood who recognized how he could apply that dynamism and talent to commercial projects.
Hollywood Career and Varied Projects
In America, the director made the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who care nothing for protocol, and then the David Mamet-scripted adventure drama The Bear with the actor and Alec Baldwin as characters who trek through the wilderness after a plane crash. (This film became a cult favorite when the producer Art Linson wrote amusingly about the chaotic circumstances of filming with an animal actor in his witty Hollywood book What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a serviceable suspense film, and he earned again directing the sequel in the XXX series XXX State of the Union.
Bond Film and Professional Changes
But the high point, or perhaps the low point, of Lee Tamahori’s American work was directing the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; this was the installment 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 recall where you parked it.
Subsequent Projects and Comeback
After this, Tamahori found renewed creativity. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured the actor in dual parts of the dictator's brutal offspring the character and as well as his body double, employed to shield the young tyrant-princeling from assassination or abduction: it was a forceful, watchable movie which avoided the usual double tropes. In subsequent times, he went back to the theme of Maori culture, directing The Convert in 2023, working with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter Shane Danielsen. Tamahori was an exceptional director – but it was his debut, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
