During 1994, the director Lee Tamahori delivered one of the most significant debuts of the decade, firing on all six cylinders with his heartbreaking social-realist melodrama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes are a working-class Maori family in South Auckland: Temuera Morrison is the boozing, fighting, bragging alpha-male benefit recipient the father, who returns from drinking in the pub with his pathetic sycophant mates to intimidate and assault his wife Beth, played by Rena Owen, and their five children. He shows no concern to the fate of his older boys who have drifted into gangland culture and crime, as well as his gentle daughter the girl, who has talent as a storyteller. A son gets tattoos; another is sent to a youth detention where he is at least tutored in the ways of indigenous heritage – the haka and the traditional weapon – and learns dignity and self-respect. But back at Jake’s chaotic house, Grace is assaulted by a repulsive acquaintance “Bully”; tragedy ensues, and the mother passionately confronts the wretched Jake: “Our people used to be fighters, but unlike you, Jake, they were people with mana, pride; people with spirit …”
Raw Emotion and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori unleashed with all this intense drama, and landed sledgehammer punches with bar sequences, the home scenes and the gang ritual initiation scenes, handling them with assurance and energy. He created a gutsy, sincere picture with a very 90s touch of edginess. It was a hit with viewers and reviewers, and – for good or ill – deeply impressed industry executives in Hollywood who could see how he could bring that dynamism and flair to mainstream genre material.
Hollywood Career and Varied Projects
Stateside, Tamahori made the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who ignore procedure, and then the David Mamet-scripted survival thriller The Bear with the actor and his co-star as two men who trek through the wilderness after a plane crash. (This moderate movie became a cult favorite when its producer Art Linson wrote amusingly about the turbulent production of filming with an animal actor in his droll tinseltown memoir What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a decent suspense film, and he earned again filming the sequel in the XXX series XXX State of the Union.
Bond Film and Career Shifts
Yet the peak, or perhaps the low point, of his Hollywood career was taking on the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; it was the Bond film mocked for having the worst gadget in 007 history – the invisible car. Why would anyone need an invisible car, viewers asked? This car which makes it very hard to recall where you parked it.
Later Work and Comeback
After this, Tamahori found some more interesting form. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured Dominic Cooper in the twin roles of Saddam Hussein’s hideous son Uday and also Uday’s decoy double, employed to shield the heir from assassination or kidnapping: this was a forceful, watchable film which sidestepped typical doppelganger cliches. And in later years, Tamahori returned to the subject of indigenous traditions, making The Convert in 2023, collaborating with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter Shane Danielsen. Tamahori was an outstanding filmmaker – but it was his first film, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
