During 1994, the film-maker Lee Tamahori made one of the biggest first films of that era, operating at full capacity with the heartbreaking social-realist melodrama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes represent a working-class indigenous household in Auckland's south: Temuera Morrison plays the boozing, fighting, bragging alpha-male welfare claimant the father, who returns from drinking in the pub with his pathetic sycophant mates to intimidate and assault Beth, his spouse, played by Rena Owen, and their five children. He shows no concern to the fate of his two elder sons who have fallen into gangland culture and illegal activities, as well as his gentle daughter the girl, who shows promise as a storyteller. A son gets tattoos; the other is taken to a youth detention where he is at least tutored in the traditions of indigenous heritage – the haka and the traditional weapon – and learns dignity and pride. But back at the disordered home, Grace is assaulted by a repulsive acquaintance “Bully”; disaster follows, and the mother forcefully challenges the wretched Jake: “Our people used to be fighters, but in contrast to you, they, they were individuals with honor, dignity; soulful beings …”
Raw Emotion and Confident Direction
Tamahori unleashed with all this emotional violence, and delivered powerful blows with the pub scenes, the home scenes and the gang ritual initiation scenes, handling them with confidence and verve. He created a gutsy, sincere picture with a very 90s streak of brash and trash. It was a hit with viewers and reviewers, and – whether positive or negative – strongly influenced industry executives in the film industry who recognized how he could bring that dynamism and flair to commercial projects.
Hollywood Career and Diverse Work
Stateside, the director directed the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who care nothing for protocol, and then the David Mamet-scripted survival thriller The Bear with the actor and his co-star as two men who journey through the wilderness after their plane crashes. (This film became a cult favorite when its producer Art Linson wrote humorously about the chaotic circumstances of filming with an animal actor in his witty Hollywood book What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a serviceable suspense film, and he had another payday filming the second in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Career Shifts
Yet the peak, or maybe the low point, of his American work was taking on the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; it was the Bond film derided for having the worst gadget in the series – the invisible car. Why would anyone need an invisible car, audiences wondered? It was a vehicle which makes it very hard to remember its parking spot.
Subsequent Projects and Return
Following this, the director found some more interesting form. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred Dominic Cooper in dual parts of the dictator's hideous son the character and also Uday’s decoy double, used to protect the young tyrant-princeling from attack or abduction: this was a forceful, watchable movie which sidestepped the usual doppelganger tropes. And in later years, Tamahori went back to the subject of Maori culture, making The Convert in 2023, collaborating with writer his partner. Tamahori was an outstanding director – but it was his first film, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
