In 1994, the director Lee Tamahori delivered one of the most significant first films of the decade, operating at full capacity with his heartbreaking social-realist melodrama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes are a working-class indigenous household in Auckland's south: the actor plays the drinking, fighting, boasting alpha-male benefit recipient the father, who returns from pub visits with his pathetic sycophant mates to intimidate and assault Beth, his spouse, played by Rena Owen, and their five children. He is entirely indifferent to the future of his older boys who have drifted into gang life and crime, including his sensitive daughter Grace, who shows promise as a storyteller. A son gets gang tattoos; another is taken to a juvenile reformatory where he is at least educated in the traditions of Maori culture – the war dance and the taiaha warrior spear – and learns dignity and self-respect. But back at the disordered home, the daughter is raped by a repulsive acquaintance “Uncle Bully”; tragedy ensues, and the mother forcefully challenges the despicable Jake: “Our ancestors used to be fighters, but in contrast to you, they, they were people with mana, pride; people with spirit …”
Emotional Violence and Confident Direction
Tamahori let rip with all this emotional violence, and landed sledgehammer punches with the pub scenes, domestic moments and gang initiation rituals, directing them with confidence and verve. He crafted a bold, heartfelt picture with a very 90s touch of edginess. It succeeded with audiences and reviewers, and – for good or ill – strongly influenced studio heads in Hollywood who recognized how Tamahori could bring that dynamism and talent to mainstream genre material.
American Films and Varied Projects
Stateside, the director made the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who care nothing for protocol, and then a script by Mamet adventure drama The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and his co-star as two men who journey 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 droll tinseltown memoir What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a serviceable thriller, and he earned again filming the second in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Career Shifts
Yet the peak, or maybe the nadir, of Lee Tamahori’s American work was directing the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; this was the installment mocked for having the poorest device in the series – a cloaked vehicle. What is the point an invisible car, audiences wondered? It was a vehicle which makes it very hard to remember where you parked it.
Subsequent Projects and Return
After this, Tamahori discovered renewed creativity. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred the actor in dual parts of Saddam Hussein’s brutal offspring Uday and also Uday’s decoy double, employed to protect the young tyrant-princeling from attack or kidnapping: this was a forceful, engaging movie which avoided typical double tropes. And in later years, Tamahori returned to the subject of Maori culture, directing The Convert in 2023, working with writer his partner. He proved to be an outstanding director – but it was his debut, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
