In 1994, the director Lee Tamahori delivered one of the most significant first films of that era, operating at full capacity with his gut-wrenching social-realist drama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes represent a blue-collar indigenous family in South Auckland: the actor plays the boozing, brawling, boasting alpha-male welfare claimant the father, who comes home from pub visits with his weak followers to terrorise and abuse his wife Beth, played by the actress, and their kids. He shows no concern to the future of his older boys who have fallen into gangland culture and crime, as well as his sensitive daughter the girl, who has talent as a writer. One son gets tattoos; the other is taken to a youth detention where he is partly educated in the ways of Maori culture – the war dance and the traditional weapon – and gains self-worth and self-respect. But back at Jake’s chaotic house, the daughter is assaulted by Jake’s grotesque friend “Bully”; tragedy ensues, and Beth passionately confronts the despicable Jake: “Our people once were warriors, but unlike you, they, they were people with mana, dignity; people with spirit …”
Raw Emotion and Confident Direction
Tamahori let rip with such intense drama, and delivered powerful blows with the pub scenes, domestic moments and gang initiation rituals, handling them with confidence and verve. He crafted a gutsy, sincere film with a distinctly 90s touch of brash and trash. It was a hit with viewers and reviewers, and – for good or ill – deeply impressed studio heads in Hollywood who recognized how he could bring that dynamism and talent to mainstream genre material.
American Films and Diverse Work
Stateside, Tamahori made the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who care nothing for procedure, and then the David Mamet-scripted adventure drama The Bear with the actor and his co-star as two men who journey through wild terrain after a plane crash. (This moderate movie gained cult status when its 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 had another payday 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 Lee Tamahori’s Hollywood career was taking on the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; it was the Bond film derided for having the poorest device in the series – the invisible car. What is the point an invisible car, viewers asked? This car that makes it difficult to recall its parking spot.
Later Work and Comeback
Following this, the director discovered some more interesting form. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred the actor in dual parts of Saddam Hussein’s brutal offspring the character and also Uday’s decoy double, employed to protect the heir from attack or abduction: it was a punchy, watchable film which avoided typical doppelganger cliches. And in later years, Tamahori went back to the theme of indigenous traditions, directing The Convert in 2023, collaborating with writer his partner. Tamahori was an exceptional director – but it remained his debut, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
