In 1994, this director Lee Tamahori delivered one of the biggest first films of that era, firing on all six cylinders with his gut-wrenching social-realist melodrama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes are a blue-collar indigenous family in South Auckland: Temuera Morrison is the boozing, brawling, bragging dominant welfare claimant the father, who returns from pub visits with his pathetic sycophant mates to terrorise and assault his wife Beth, played by Rena Owen, and their five children. He is entirely indifferent to the future of his two elder sons who have fallen into gang life and crime, including his sensitive daughter Grace, who shows promise as a writer. One son gets gang tattoos; the other is taken to a juvenile reformatory where he is partly educated in the traditions of indigenous heritage – the haka and the taiaha warrior spear – and gains self-worth and pride. But back at Jake’s chaotic house, the daughter is raped by Jake’s grotesque friend “Bully”; disaster follows, and Beth passionately confronts the wretched Jake: “Our people used to be fighters, but in contrast to you, Jake, they were people with mana, dignity; soulful beings …”
Emotional Violence and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori unleashed with such intense drama, and landed sledgehammer punches with the pub scenes, domestic moments and the gang ritual initiation scenes, handling them with confidence and verve. He crafted a bold, heartfelt film with a very 90s touch of edginess. It was a hit with viewers and critics, and – whether positive or negative – strongly influenced industry executives in Hollywood who recognized how he could bring this energy and flair to commercial projects.
Hollywood Career and Varied Projects
In America, Tamahori made the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who ignore protocol, and then the David Mamet-scripted adventure drama The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and his co-star as two men who trek through the wilderness after a plane crash. (This film became a cult favorite when its producer Art Linson wrote humorously about the chaotic circumstances of shooting with an animal actor in his droll tinseltown memoir What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a serviceable suspense film, and he earned again filming the second in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Professional Changes
Yet the peak, or perhaps the low point, of his American work was directing the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; it was the Bond film mocked for having the poorest device in 007 history – the invisible car. Why would anyone need an invisible car, viewers asked? It was a vehicle that makes it difficult to remember where you parked it.
Subsequent Projects and Return
Following this, the director discovered some more interesting form. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured the actor 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 assassination or kidnapping: it was a forceful, watchable film which avoided the usual doppelganger cliches. In subsequent times, he returned to the theme of indigenous traditions, directing The Convert in 2023, working with writer his partner. He proved to be an outstanding filmmaker – but it was his debut, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
