During 1994, the film-maker Lee Tamahori delivered one of the biggest first films of the decade, firing on all six cylinders with his gut-wrenching socially conscious melodrama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes represent a working-class Maori family in Auckland's south: Temuera Morrison is the drinking, fighting, boasting alpha-male welfare claimant Jake, who returns from pub visits with his weak followers to intimidate and assault his wife Beth, portrayed by Rena Owen, and their kids. He shows no concern to the future of his older boys who have fallen into gangland culture and illegal activities, as well as his gentle daughter Grace, who has talent as a storyteller. One son gets tattoos; another is sent to a juvenile reformatory where he is partly tutored in the ways of Maori culture – the haka and the taiaha warrior spear – and learns self-worth and self-respect. Meanwhile at Jake’s chaotic house, the daughter is raped by Jake’s grotesque friend “Uncle Bully”; tragedy ensues, and Beth forcefully challenges the wretched Jake: “Our people once were warriors, but in contrast to you, Jake, they were individuals with honor, pride; soulful beings …”
Emotional Violence and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori unleashed with all this intense drama, and delivered powerful blows with bar sequences, the home scenes and the gang ritual initiation scenes, handling them with assurance and energy. He crafted a gutsy, heartfelt picture with a distinctly 90s streak of brash and trash. It was a hit with viewers and critics, and – for good or ill – strongly influenced industry executives in the film industry who could see how Tamahori could bring this energy and flair to commercial projects.
Hollywood Career and Diverse Work
In America, the director made the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who ignore procedure, and then a script by Mamet adventure drama The Bear with the actor and Alec Baldwin as characters who journey through the wilderness after a plane crash. (This film gained cult status when the producer he wrote amusingly about the turbulent production of shooting with an animal actor in his witty Hollywood book What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a serviceable suspense film, and he earned again directing the second in the XXX series XXX State of the Union.
Bond Film and Professional Changes
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; it was the installment mocked for having the poorest device in the series – the invisible car. What is the point such a car, viewers asked? This car that makes it difficult to remember its parking spot.
Later Work and Return
After this, Tamahori found renewed creativity. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred Dominic Cooper in dual parts of the dictator's brutal offspring the character and as well as his body double, used to protect the heir from attack or abduction: this was a punchy, watchable movie which avoided the usual doppelganger cliches. And in later years, he returned to the subject of Maori culture, directing The Convert in 2023, working with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter Shane Danielsen. Tamahori was an outstanding director – but it was his debut, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
