Lee Tamahori's First Film Once Were Warriors Showcased a Filmmaker of Guts and Flair
In 1994, the director Lee Tamahori made one of the most significant first films of that era, firing on all six cylinders with the gut-wrenching social-realist melodrama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes are a working-class Maori household in Auckland's south: Temuera Morrison plays the drinking, brawling, boasting dominant welfare claimant Jake, who comes home from drinking in the pub with his pathetic sycophant mates to terrorise and assault Beth, his spouse, portrayed by Rena Owen, and their kids. He shows no concern to the future of his older boys who have fallen into gangland culture and illegal activities, including his sensitive daughter the girl, who shows promise as a storyteller. One son gets gang tattoos; another is sent to a youth detention where he is at least tutored in the ways of indigenous heritage – the haka and the taiaha warrior spear – and gains dignity and pride. But back at Jake’s chaotic house, Grace is raped by a repulsive acquaintance “Bully”; disaster follows, and the mother passionately confronts the despicable Jake: “Our ancestors once were warriors, but in contrast to you, Jake, they were individuals with honor, pride; soulful beings …”
Raw Emotion and Skilled Filmmaking
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 assurance and verve. He created a gutsy, sincere picture with a distinctly 90s streak of edginess. It succeeded with viewers and reviewers, and – for good or ill – deeply impressed studio heads in Hollywood who could see how he could apply this energy and talent to commercial projects.
Hollywood Career and Diverse Work
In America, Tamahori made the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who care nothing for protocol, and then the David Mamet-scripted survival thriller The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and his co-star as two men who journey through wild terrain after a plane crash. (This moderate movie became a cult favorite when the producer he wrote humorously about the chaotic circumstances of shooting with an animal actor in his droll tinseltown memoir What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a decent suspense film, and he earned again filming the sequel in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
Bond Film 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; it was the Bond film derided for having the worst gadget in 007 history – the invisible car. What is the point an invisible car, audiences wondered? It was a vehicle that makes it difficult to recall where you parked it.
Subsequent Projects and Comeback
After this, Tamahori discovered some more interesting form. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred the actor in dual parts of the dictator's hideous son the character and as well as his body double, employed to shield the young tyrant-princeling from attack or abduction: it was a punchy, engaging film which sidestepped the usual doppelganger cliches. And in later years, he went back to the theme of Maori culture, making The Convert in 2023, collaborating with writer his partner. He proved to be an outstanding director – but it was his debut, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
