During 1994, this director Lee Tamahori delivered one of the biggest debuts of the decade, firing on all six cylinders with the heartbreaking socially conscious drama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes are a working-class indigenous household in Auckland's south: Temuera Morrison is the drinking, brawling, boasting dominant welfare claimant Jake, who returns from drinking in the pub with his pathetic sycophant mates to terrorise and assault Beth, his spouse, played by the actress, and their five children. He is entirely indifferent to the future of his older boys who have fallen into gang life and crime, including his gentle daughter Grace, who has talent as a storyteller. A son receives tattoos; another is taken to a juvenile reformatory where he is partly educated in the traditions of Maori culture – the haka and the traditional weapon – and gains self-worth and self-respect. Meanwhile at Jake’s chaotic house, Grace is raped by Jake’s grotesque friend “Bully”; disaster follows, and the mother forcefully challenges the wretched Jake: “Our people used to be fighters, but in contrast to you, they, they were individuals with honor, dignity; people with spirit …”
Raw Emotion and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori unleashed with such emotional violence, and landed sledgehammer punches with bar sequences, the home scenes and gang initiation rituals, directing them with assurance and energy. He crafted a gutsy, sincere picture with a very 90s streak of edginess. It was a hit with audiences and critics, and – for good or ill – deeply impressed industry executives in the film industry who could see how he could bring this energy and talent to mainstream genre material.
American Films and Varied Projects
Stateside, the director directed the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who ignore protocol, and then a script by Mamet adventure drama The Bear with the actor and his co-star as characters who trek through the wilderness after their plane crashes. (This moderate movie became a cult favorite when the producer Art Linson wrote amusingly about the turbulent production of shooting with an animal actor in his droll tinseltown memoir What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a serviceable suspense film, and he had another payday filming the second in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Career Shifts
Yet the peak, or perhaps the low point, of Lee Tamahori’s Hollywood career was directing the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; it was the installment derided for having the poorest device in 007 history – a cloaked vehicle. Why would anyone need an invisible car, audiences wondered? This car that makes it difficult to remember its parking spot.
Subsequent Projects and Return
Following this, the director found renewed creativity. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured the actor in dual parts of Saddam Hussein’s hideous son the character and as well as Uday’s decoy double, employed to protect the young tyrant-princeling from attack or abduction: it was a punchy, watchable film which sidestepped the usual double tropes. And in later years, he went back to the theme of Maori culture, directing The Convert in 2023, working with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter Shane Danielsen. He proved to be an outstanding filmmaker – but it was his debut, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
