During 1994, the director Lee Tamahori made one of the most significant first films of that era, firing on all six cylinders with his heartbreaking social-realist melodrama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes represent a working-class indigenous household in South Auckland: the actor is the boozing, fighting, bragging alpha-male welfare claimant Jake, who comes home from drinking in the pub with his pathetic sycophant mates to intimidate and abuse Beth, his spouse, played by the actress, and their five children. He is entirely indifferent to the fate 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. A son receives gang tattoos; another is taken to a youth detention where he is partly 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 Jake’s grotesque friend “Uncle Bully”; disaster follows, and the mother passionately confronts the despicable Jake: “Our people once were warriors, but in contrast to you, they, they were people with mana, pride; soulful beings …”
Emotional Violence and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori unleashed with all this emotional violence, and delivered powerful blows with the pub scenes, the home scenes and gang initiation rituals, handling them with assurance and energy. He crafted a bold, sincere picture with a very 90s touch of brash and trash. It succeeded with audiences and critics, and – whether positive or negative – deeply impressed industry executives in the film industry who recognized how Tamahori could apply that dynamism and talent to commercial projects.
Hollywood Career and Diverse Work
Stateside, the director directed the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who ignore procedure, and then a script by Mamet adventure drama The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin as characters who trek through wild terrain after their plane crashes. (This film became a cult favorite when the producer Art Linson wrote amusingly 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 suspense film, and he earned again filming the second in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Professional Changes
Yet the peak, or maybe the low point, of Lee Tamahori’s Hollywood career was taking on the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; it was the Bond film mocked for having the poorest device in 007 history – a cloaked vehicle. What is the point an invisible car, audiences wondered? It was a vehicle which makes it very hard to remember where you parked it.
Subsequent Projects and Comeback
Following this, Tamahori discovered renewed creativity. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured Dominic Cooper in the twin roles of the dictator's hideous son Uday and also Uday’s decoy double, employed to protect the young tyrant-princeling from assassination or kidnapping: this was a forceful, engaging film which avoided typical doppelganger cliches. In subsequent times, he returned to the theme of indigenous traditions, directing The Convert in 2023, working with writer his partner. He proved to be an outstanding director – but it remained his debut, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
