During 1994, the film-maker Lee Tamahori delivered one of the biggest debuts of that era, operating at full capacity with the heartbreaking social-realist melodrama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes represent a working-class indigenous household in South Auckland: Temuera Morrison is the drinking, brawling, bragging dominant welfare claimant Jake, who returns from pub visits with his weak followers to intimidate and abuse his wife Beth, portrayed by the actress, and their five children. He is entirely indifferent to the fate of his two elder sons who have drifted into gangland culture and crime, including his sensitive daughter the girl, who has talent as a storyteller. A son receives gang tattoos; the other is taken to a youth detention where he is at least tutored in the ways of Maori culture – the haka and the traditional weapon – and gains dignity and self-respect. But back at Jake’s chaotic house, Grace is raped by Jake’s grotesque friend “Uncle Bully”; disaster follows, and the mother forcefully challenges the despicable Jake: “Our people used to be fighters, but in contrast to you, they, they were individuals with honor, pride; soulful beings …”
Raw Emotion and Confident Direction
Tamahori unleashed with such emotional violence, and landed sledgehammer punches with the pub scenes, the home scenes and the gang ritual initiation scenes, directing them with assurance and verve. He created a gutsy, sincere picture with a distinctly 90s touch of edginess. It succeeded with audiences and reviewers, and – for good or ill – strongly influenced studio heads in the film industry who could see how Tamahori could bring that dynamism and flair to mainstream genre material.
Hollywood Career and Diverse Work
In America, the director directed the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who care nothing for protocol, and then a script by Mamet adventure drama The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin as characters who trek through the wilderness after their plane crashes. (This film gained cult status when its producer he wrote humorously about the turbulent production of shooting with a trained bear in his witty Hollywood book What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a serviceable thriller, and he earned again directing the sequel in the XXX series XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Career Shifts
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 the star; this was the Bond film derided for having the poorest device in the series – a cloaked vehicle. Why would anyone need such a car, audiences wondered? This car which makes it very hard to remember its parking spot.
Subsequent Projects and Return
Following this, Tamahori discovered renewed creativity. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured Dominic Cooper in the twin roles of Saddam Hussein’s hideous son Uday and also his body double, employed to protect the young tyrant-princeling from assassination or kidnapping: this was a punchy, engaging film which avoided the usual double tropes. And in later years, he returned to the subject of indigenous traditions, making The Convert in 2023, collaborating with writer his partner. He proved to be an outstanding director – but it was his debut, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
