In 1994, this director Lee Tamahori made one of the biggest debuts of the decade, firing on all six cylinders with his heartbreaking socially conscious melodrama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes represent a working-class Maori household in Auckland's south: the actor plays the drinking, fighting, boasting dominant welfare claimant the father, who returns from pub visits with his weak followers to intimidate and assault his wife Beth, played by Rena Owen, and their five children. He shows no concern to the fate of his two elder sons who have fallen into gang life and crime, as well as his gentle daughter Grace, who has talent as a storyteller. One son gets tattoos; the other is taken to a juvenile reformatory where he is partly tutored in the ways of Maori culture – the haka and the taiaha warrior spear – and learns self-worth and pride. Meanwhile at the disordered home, the daughter is assaulted by Jake’s grotesque friend “Bully”; tragedy ensues, and the mother forcefully challenges the despicable Jake: “Our ancestors used to be fighters, but in contrast to you, Jake, they were people with mana, pride; soulful beings …”
Raw Emotion and Confident Direction
Tamahori unleashed with such intense drama, and delivered powerful blows with the pub scenes, domestic moments and the gang ritual initiation scenes, handling them with assurance and energy. He created a gutsy, sincere picture with a distinctly 90s touch of brash and trash. It succeeded with audiences and critics, and – whether positive or negative – deeply impressed studio heads in the film industry who could see how he could apply this energy and talent to commercial projects.
American Films and Varied Projects
Stateside, the director made the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who care nothing for protocol, and then the David Mamet-scripted survival thriller The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and his co-star as two men who trek through the wilderness after their plane crashes. (This film gained cult status when the producer Art Linson wrote amusingly 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 suspense film, and he earned again directing the sequel in the XXX series XXX State of the Union.
Bond Film and Career Shifts
But the high point, or perhaps the low point, of Lee Tamahori’s Hollywood career was directing the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; it was the installment derided for having the poorest device in the series – a cloaked vehicle. What is the point such a car, audiences wondered? This car that makes it difficult to remember its parking spot.
Subsequent Projects and Return
After this, Tamahori found some more interesting form. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred Dominic Cooper in the twin roles of the dictator's hideous son Uday and as well as his body double, employed to protect the young tyrant-princeling from attack or abduction: this was a forceful, watchable movie which avoided the usual doppelganger tropes. And in later years, Tamahori returned to the subject of Maori culture, making The Convert in 2023, working with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter his partner. Tamahori was an exceptional filmmaker – but it was his debut, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
