In 1994, this director Lee Tamahori made one of the most significant first films of that era, operating at full capacity with his gut-wrenching socially conscious melodrama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes are a working-class Maori household in Auckland's south: the actor is the boozing, fighting, bragging alpha-male welfare claimant the father, who comes home from drinking in the pub with his weak followers to terrorise and abuse Beth, his spouse, played by the actress, and their kids. He shows no concern to the future of his two elder sons who have drifted into gangland culture and crime, including his sensitive daughter Grace, who has talent as a storyteller. A son gets tattoos; the other is sent to a youth detention where he is at least tutored in the traditions of Maori culture – the haka and the taiaha warrior spear – and gains dignity and self-respect. But back at Jake’s chaotic house, the daughter is assaulted by Jake’s grotesque friend “Bully”; disaster follows, and Beth passionately confronts the wretched Jake: “Our ancestors used to be fighters, but unlike you, Jake, they were people with mana, dignity; people with spirit …”
Raw Emotion and Confident Direction
Tamahori unleashed with all this intense drama, and delivered powerful blows with the pub scenes, the home scenes and the gang ritual initiation scenes, handling them with confidence and verve. He created a gutsy, sincere film with a very 90s streak of edginess. It succeeded with viewers and reviewers, and – whether positive or negative – strongly influenced industry executives in Hollywood who recognized how he could bring that dynamism and talent to mainstream genre material.
Hollywood Career and Varied Projects
Stateside, the director made the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who ignore protocol, and then the David Mamet-scripted survival thriller The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and his co-star as characters 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 filming with a trained bear in his droll tinseltown memoir What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a decent suspense film, and he had another payday filming the sequel in the XXX series XXX State of the Union.
Bond Film and Career Shifts
But the high point, or perhaps the low point, of Lee Tamahori’s American work was taking on the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; this was the installment mocked for having the poorest device in the series – the invisible car. What is the point such a car, viewers asked? This car that makes it difficult to recall where you parked it.
Later Work and Comeback
After this, the director found some more interesting form. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured the actor in the twin roles of the dictator's hideous son Uday and also Uday’s decoy double, used to protect the heir from assassination or abduction: this was a punchy, watchable film which avoided the usual double cliches. And in later years, Tamahori went back to the subject of indigenous traditions, directing The Convert in 2023, collaborating with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter his partner. Tamahori was an exceptional filmmaker – but it was his debut, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
