During 1994, this film-maker Lee Tamahori made one of the biggest debuts of the decade, operating at full capacity with his gut-wrenching socially conscious melodrama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes represent a working-class Maori family in South Auckland: the actor plays the boozing, fighting, bragging dominant welfare claimant Jake, who returns from drinking in the pub with his weak followers to intimidate and assault Beth, his spouse, played by the actress, and their kids. He shows no concern to the fate of his older boys who have drifted into gang life and crime, as well as his gentle daughter the girl, who has talent as a storyteller. One son receives gang tattoos; another is taken to a juvenile reformatory where he is at least educated in the ways of Maori culture – the haka and the taiaha warrior spear – and learns self-worth and self-respect. Meanwhile at the disordered home, the daughter is assaulted by Jake’s grotesque friend “Bully”; tragedy ensues, and Beth forcefully challenges the wretched Jake: “Our ancestors once were warriors, but unlike you, Jake, they were individuals with honor, pride; people with spirit …”
Raw Emotion and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori let rip with such emotional violence, and delivered powerful blows with bar sequences, the home scenes and the gang ritual initiation scenes, directing them with confidence and verve. He crafted a gutsy, heartfelt picture with a very 90s streak of brash and trash. It succeeded with audiences and critics, and – whether positive or negative – deeply impressed studio heads in Hollywood who could see how Tamahori could apply this energy and talent to commercial projects.
American Films and Diverse Work
In America, the director made the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who care nothing for procedure, and then the David Mamet-scripted survival thriller The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin as characters who trek through the wilderness after a plane crash. (This film became a cult favorite when the producer Art Linson wrote amusingly about the turbulent production of shooting with an animal actor in his droll tinseltown memoir What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a decent thriller, and he earned again directing the sequel in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Professional Changes
But the high point, or perhaps the low point, of Lee Tamahori’s Hollywood career was taking on the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; it was the Bond film derided for having the worst gadget in the series – the invisible car. Why would anyone need such a car, audiences wondered? This car which makes it very hard to remember its parking spot.
Subsequent Projects and Return
After this, the director found some more interesting form. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred Dominic Cooper in the twin roles of the dictator's hideous son Uday and as well as his body double, employed to shield the young tyrant-princeling from attack or kidnapping: it was a punchy, watchable film which avoided the usual double tropes. And in later years, he returned to the theme of Maori culture, directing The Convert in 2023, working with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter Shane Danielsen. Tamahori was an outstanding director – but it remained his first film, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
