In 1994, this film-maker Lee Tamahori made one of the biggest first films of the decade, operating at full capacity with his heartbreaking socially conscious melodrama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes are a blue-collar Maori household 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 intimidate and abuse Beth, his spouse, portrayed 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, as well as his sensitive daughter the girl, who shows promise as a storyteller. One son receives tattoos; the other is taken to a juvenile reformatory where he is partly educated in the ways of Maori culture – the haka and the taiaha warrior spear – and learns dignity and pride. Meanwhile at Jake’s chaotic house, the daughter is assaulted by Jake’s grotesque friend “Bully”; tragedy ensues, and Beth forcefully challenges the wretched Jake: “Our ancestors used to be fighters, but unlike you, Jake, they were individuals with honor, dignity; soulful beings …”
Emotional Violence and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori let rip with such intense drama, and landed sledgehammer punches with the pub scenes, the home scenes and gang initiation rituals, handling them with confidence and verve. He crafted a bold, sincere film with a distinctly 90s touch of brash and trash. It succeeded with audiences and critics, and – whether positive or negative – strongly influenced studio heads in Hollywood who recognized how he could apply this energy and flair to mainstream genre material.
American Films and Varied Projects
Stateside, the director directed the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who ignore protocol, and then a script by Mamet survival thriller The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin as two men who trek through the wilderness after a plane crash. (This moderate movie gained cult status when its producer Art Linson wrote humorously about the turbulent production of shooting with a trained bear 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 maybe the nadir, of his Hollywood career was taking on the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; it was the installment mocked for having the poorest device in 007 history – a cloaked vehicle. Why would anyone need an invisible car, viewers asked? It was a vehicle which makes it very hard to remember where you parked it.
Later Work and Return
After this, the director discovered renewed creativity. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred Dominic Cooper in dual parts of the dictator's hideous son Uday and as well as Uday’s decoy double, used to protect the heir from assassination or kidnapping: it was a punchy, engaging film which sidestepped the usual double cliches. And in later years, Tamahori went back to the theme of Maori culture, directing The Convert in 2023, working with writer Shane Danielsen. He proved to be an exceptional filmmaker – but it was his debut, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
