During 1994, this director Lee Tamahori delivered one of the most significant first films of the decade, firing on all six cylinders with his heartbreaking social-realist drama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes represent a working-class indigenous household in South Auckland: Temuera Morrison is the boozing, brawling, bragging dominant benefit recipient the father, who returns from drinking in the pub with his weak followers to terrorise and abuse Beth, his spouse, portrayed by the actress, and their five children. He is entirely indifferent to the future of his two elder sons who have fallen into gangland culture and crime, including his gentle daughter Grace, who has talent as a writer. One son receives gang tattoos; another is taken to a juvenile reformatory where he is at least educated in the traditions of indigenous heritage – the haka 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 “Uncle Bully”; disaster follows, and the mother forcefully challenges 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 Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori unleashed with such emotional violence, and landed sledgehammer punches with bar sequences, domestic moments and gang initiation rituals, handling them with confidence and energy. He created a gutsy, sincere film with a very 90s streak of brash and trash. It was a hit with viewers and reviewers, and – whether positive or negative – strongly influenced industry executives in Hollywood who could see how he could apply that dynamism and talent to mainstream genre material.
Hollywood Career and Varied Projects
In America, Tamahori directed the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who ignore procedure, and then a script by Mamet survival thriller The Bear with the actor and Alec Baldwin as characters who trek through wild terrain after a plane crash. (This film gained cult status when the producer he wrote humorously about the turbulent production of filming with a trained bear in his witty Hollywood book What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a serviceable thriller, and he had another payday filming the sequel in the XXX series XXX State of the Union.
Bond Film and Professional Changes
But the high point, or maybe the low point, of his American work was taking on the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; this was the Bond film derided for having the poorest device in 007 history – the invisible car. Why would anyone need such a car, viewers asked? This car that makes it difficult to recall its parking spot.
Later Work and Return
After this, the director found some more interesting form. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured Dominic Cooper in dual parts of Saddam Hussein’s brutal offspring the character and as well as Uday’s decoy double, used to shield the young tyrant-princeling from attack or kidnapping: this was a forceful, engaging movie which sidestepped the usual double tropes. And in later years, he went back to the theme of Maori culture, directing The Convert in 2023, collaborating with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter Shane Danielsen. Tamahori was an outstanding director – but it was his debut, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
