During 1994, this film-maker Lee Tamahori delivered one of the most significant debuts of the decade, operating at full capacity with the heartbreaking socially conscious melodrama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes represent a working-class Maori family in South Auckland: Temuera Morrison is the drinking, fighting, boasting dominant welfare claimant the father, who comes home from pub visits with his weak followers to intimidate and abuse his wife Beth, played by the actress, and their five children. He shows no concern to the future of his older boys who have fallen into gang life and illegal activities, including his gentle daughter the girl, who shows promise as a writer. One son receives gang tattoos; the other is taken to a juvenile reformatory where he is partly tutored in the ways of indigenous heritage – the haka and the traditional weapon – and learns self-worth and self-respect. But back at Jake’s chaotic house, the daughter is assaulted by a repulsive acquaintance “Bully”; tragedy ensues, and the mother passionately confronts the wretched Jake: “Our people once were warriors, but unlike you, they, they were people with mana, pride; people with spirit …”
Emotional Violence and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori let rip with all this emotional violence, and delivered powerful blows with bar sequences, domestic moments and gang initiation rituals, directing them with confidence and verve. He crafted a bold, sincere picture with a distinctly 90s streak of brash and trash. It was a hit with audiences and reviewers, and – for good or ill – deeply impressed studio heads in Hollywood who recognized how Tamahori could apply this energy and talent to commercial projects.
American Films and Diverse Work
Stateside, Tamahori directed the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who ignore procedure, and then a script by Mamet survival thriller The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin as characters who trek through wild terrain after a plane crash. (This moderate movie became a cult favorite when its producer Art Linson wrote humorously about the chaotic circumstances of filming with a trained bear in his witty Hollywood book What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a serviceable thriller, and he earned again directing the second in the XXX series XXX State of the Union.
Bond Film and Career Shifts
But the high point, or perhaps the low point, of his Hollywood career was taking on the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; this was the Bond film mocked for having the poorest device in 007 history – the invisible car. Why would anyone need such a car, viewers asked? This car that makes it difficult to recall where you parked it.
Subsequent Projects and Comeback
After this, the director found some more interesting form. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured Dominic Cooper in dual parts of Saddam Hussein’s hideous son Uday and as well as his body double, used to shield the young tyrant-princeling from attack or abduction: this was a punchy, watchable film which avoided the usual double tropes. In subsequent times, he returned to the theme of Maori culture, making The Convert in 2023, working with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter his partner. Tamahori was an outstanding director – but it remained his first film, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
