During 1994, this film-maker Lee Tamahori delivered one of the biggest first films of the decade, operating at full capacity with his heartbreaking social-realist drama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes represent a blue-collar indigenous household in Auckland's south: the actor is the drinking, brawling, bragging dominant welfare claimant Jake, who comes home from drinking in the pub with his pathetic sycophant mates to terrorise and abuse his wife Beth, played by Rena Owen, and their kids. He shows no concern to the fate of his older boys who have fallen into gangland culture and illegal activities, as well as his sensitive daughter Grace, who shows promise as a writer. A son gets gang tattoos; the other is sent to a juvenile reformatory where he is partly tutored in the ways of Maori culture – the haka and the traditional weapon – and gains self-worth and self-respect. Meanwhile at the disordered home, Grace is assaulted by Jake’s grotesque friend “Uncle Bully”; tragedy ensues, and the mother passionately confronts the despicable Jake: “Our people once were warriors, but in contrast to you, they, they were individuals with honor, dignity; people with spirit …”
Raw Emotion and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori let rip with all this emotional violence, and delivered powerful blows with bar sequences, domestic moments and the gang ritual initiation scenes, directing them with assurance and verve. He created a bold, sincere picture with a distinctly 90s streak of edginess. It was a hit with audiences and critics, and – whether positive or negative – deeply impressed industry executives in Hollywood who recognized how he could bring this energy and talent to commercial projects.
American Films and Varied Projects
Stateside, Tamahori directed the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who care nothing for procedure, and then the David Mamet-scripted survival thriller The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin as characters who trek through wild terrain 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 droll tinseltown memoir What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a decent thriller, and he had another payday filming the second in the XXX series XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Career Shifts
Yet the peak, or maybe the nadir, of Lee Tamahori’s American work was taking on the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; this was the installment mocked for having the worst gadget in 007 history – a cloaked vehicle. What is the point such a car, viewers asked? This car which makes it very hard to recall its parking spot.
Subsequent Projects and Return
Following this, the director found renewed creativity. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred the actor in dual parts of Saddam Hussein’s hideous son the character and also his body double, used to protect the young tyrant-princeling from attack or kidnapping: it was a forceful, watchable movie which avoided the usual doppelganger cliches. And in later years, Tamahori returned to the theme of Maori culture, making The Convert in 2023, collaborating with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter Shane Danielsen. Tamahori was an outstanding director – but it remained his first film, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
