During 1994, this film-maker Lee Tamahori delivered one of the biggest debuts of that era, firing on all six cylinders with his heartbreaking socially conscious melodrama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes represent a working-class indigenous household in Auckland's south: Temuera Morrison is the boozing, brawling, bragging dominant welfare claimant Jake, who comes home from pub visits with his weak followers to intimidate and abuse his wife Beth, portrayed by the actress, and their five children. He shows no concern to the fate of his two elder sons who have fallen into gangland culture and crime, as well as his sensitive daughter Grace, who shows promise as a storyteller. A son gets gang tattoos; another is taken to a juvenile reformatory where he is partly educated in the ways of indigenous heritage – the haka and the taiaha warrior spear – and learns self-worth and self-respect. But back at the disordered home, the daughter is assaulted by Jake’s grotesque friend “Bully”; disaster follows, and Beth passionately confronts the despicable Jake: “Our ancestors once were warriors, but unlike you, they, they were individuals with honor, dignity; people with spirit …”
Emotional Violence and Confident Direction
Tamahori unleashed with such emotional violence, and delivered powerful blows with the pub scenes, domestic moments and the gang ritual initiation scenes, directing them with confidence and energy. He created a gutsy, heartfelt film with a very 90s streak of edginess. It was a hit with audiences and reviewers, and – whether positive or negative – deeply impressed industry executives in Hollywood who recognized how Tamahori could apply that dynamism and flair to mainstream genre material.
Hollywood Career and Varied Projects
In America, the director directed the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who care nothing for protocol, and then a script by Mamet survival thriller The Bear with the actor and his co-star as two men who trek through the wilderness after their plane crashes. (This film became a cult favorite when the producer Art Linson wrote amusingly about the chaotic circumstances of filming with a trained bear in his droll tinseltown memoir What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a decent suspense film, and he earned again directing the second in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Career Shifts
But the high point, or maybe the nadir, of his Hollywood career was taking on the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; this was the Bond film mocked for having the worst gadget in 007 history – a cloaked vehicle. Why would anyone need an invisible car, audiences wondered? This car which makes it very hard to remember its parking spot.
Subsequent Projects and Return
After this, the director found renewed creativity. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured Dominic Cooper in the twin roles of Saddam Hussein’s hideous son Uday and as well as Uday’s decoy double, employed to shield the young tyrant-princeling from attack or kidnapping: this was a punchy, engaging movie which sidestepped typical doppelganger cliches. And in later years, Tamahori went back to the theme of indigenous traditions, making The Convert in 2023, working with writer Shane Danielsen. He proved to be an outstanding filmmaker – but it remained his first film, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
