The Director's First Film Once Were Warriors Showcased a Filmmaker of Courage and Style
In 1994, this director Lee Tamahori delivered one of the most significant first films of that era, operating at full capacity with the heartbreaking socially conscious drama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes are a blue-collar indigenous family in South Auckland: Temuera Morrison plays the drinking, fighting, boasting alpha-male welfare claimant the father, who returns from pub visits with his pathetic sycophant mates to terrorise and assault his wife Beth, played by the actress, and their five children. He is entirely indifferent to the future of his older boys who have fallen into gangland culture and illegal activities, including his gentle daughter the girl, who has talent as a writer. A son gets gang tattoos; the other is sent to a youth detention where he is partly tutored in the ways of Maori culture – the haka and the traditional weapon – and gains dignity and pride. Meanwhile at Jake’s chaotic house, Grace is raped by Jake’s grotesque friend “Uncle Bully”; disaster follows, and Beth forcefully challenges the wretched Jake: “Our people used to be fighters, but unlike you, Jake, they were individuals with honor, dignity; soulful beings …”
Emotional Violence and Confident Direction
Tamahori unleashed 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 bold, heartfelt picture with a distinctly 90s touch of brash and trash. It was a hit with audiences and critics, and – whether positive or negative – strongly influenced studio heads in the film industry who could see how Tamahori could apply this energy and flair to commercial projects.
American Films and Diverse Work
Stateside, Tamahori directed the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who ignore procedure, and then the David Mamet-scripted survival thriller The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin as two men who journey through wild terrain after their plane crashes. (This moderate movie gained cult status when the producer he 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 XXX series XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Career Shifts
But the high point, or perhaps the low point, of Lee Tamahori’s American work was directing the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; it was the Bond film derided for having the poorest device in 007 history – the invisible car. Why would anyone need such a car, viewers asked? This car which makes it very hard to recall where you parked it.
Subsequent Projects and Comeback
Following this, the director discovered renewed creativity. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured Dominic Cooper in dual parts of Saddam Hussein’s brutal offspring the character and also Uday’s decoy double, used to shield the young tyrant-princeling from attack or abduction: it was a punchy, engaging film which sidestepped the usual doppelganger cliches. In subsequent times, he went back to the theme of Maori culture, directing The Convert in 2023, collaborating with writer his partner. Tamahori was an exceptional director – but it was his debut, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
