During 1994, this director Lee Tamahori delivered one of the biggest first films of the decade, firing on all six cylinders with the gut-wrenching social-realist melodrama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes represent a working-class Maori family in Auckland's south: Temuera Morrison is the drinking, brawling, bragging dominant welfare claimant Jake, who comes home from pub visits with his weak followers to terrorise and abuse his wife Beth, portrayed by Rena Owen, and their five children. He shows no concern to the future of his older boys who have drifted into gangland culture and illegal activities, including his gentle daughter the girl, who has talent as a writer. A son gets gang tattoos; another is taken to a juvenile reformatory where he is partly educated in the ways of indigenous heritage – the war dance and the traditional weapon – and gains dignity and self-respect. Meanwhile at Jake’s chaotic house, the daughter is raped by a repulsive acquaintance “Bully”; tragedy ensues, and the mother passionately confronts the wretched Jake: “Our ancestors used to be fighters, but in contrast to you, Jake, they were individuals with honor, pride; people with spirit …”
Raw Emotion and Confident Direction
Tamahori let rip with such intense drama, and delivered powerful blows with bar sequences, domestic moments and gang initiation rituals, directing them with confidence and verve. He crafted a gutsy, heartfelt picture with a very 90s streak of edginess. It succeeded with viewers and reviewers, and – whether positive or negative – strongly influenced industry executives in Hollywood who recognized how Tamahori could bring that dynamism and flair to mainstream genre material.
American Films and Varied Projects
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 Anthony Hopkins and his co-star as characters who trek through wild terrain after a plane crash. (This film gained cult status when its producer he wrote amusingly about the chaotic circumstances of filming with a trained bear in his witty Hollywood book What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a serviceable suspense film, and he earned again directing the sequel in the XXX series XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie 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; this was the Bond film mocked for having the worst gadget in the series – a cloaked vehicle. What is the point an invisible car, viewers asked? It was a vehicle which makes it very hard to remember its parking spot.
Subsequent Projects and Return
Following this, Tamahori found renewed creativity. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured the actor in the twin roles of Saddam Hussein’s hideous son Uday and also his body double, employed to shield the young tyrant-princeling from attack or abduction: it was a punchy, watchable movie which avoided typical doppelganger tropes. And in later years, Tamahori went back to the theme of Maori culture, directing The Convert in 2023, collaborating with writer Shane Danielsen. He proved to be an outstanding director – but it was his first film, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
