In 1994, this director Lee Tamahori delivered one of the most significant first films of the decade, firing on all six cylinders with his gut-wrenching social-realist melodrama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes are a blue-collar indigenous household in South Auckland: the actor is the drinking, fighting, boasting alpha-male welfare claimant the father, who comes home from pub visits 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 drifted into gang life and crime, as well as his gentle daughter the girl, who shows promise as a writer. A son receives gang tattoos; the other is taken to a juvenile reformatory where he is partly tutored in the ways of Maori culture – the war dance and the traditional weapon – and learns self-worth and pride. Meanwhile at Jake’s chaotic house, the daughter is raped by a repulsive acquaintance “Uncle Bully”; tragedy ensues, and Beth passionately confronts the wretched Jake: “Our ancestors used to be fighters, but unlike you, they, they were individuals with honor, pride; people with spirit …”
Raw Emotion and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori unleashed with such intense drama, and landed sledgehammer punches with bar sequences, domestic moments and the gang ritual initiation scenes, handling them with confidence and energy. He crafted a bold, sincere picture with a very 90s streak of brash and trash. It succeeded with audiences and critics, and – whether positive or negative – strongly influenced studio heads in Hollywood who recognized how Tamahori could apply that dynamism and talent to commercial projects.
American Films and Varied Projects
Stateside, Tamahori made the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who care nothing for procedure, and then a script by Mamet survival thriller The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and his co-star as two men who journey through wild terrain after their plane crashes. (This film gained cult status when its 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 directing the second in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Professional Changes
But the high point, or maybe the low point, of Lee Tamahori’s Hollywood career was taking on the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; it was the Bond film mocked for having the poorest device in 007 history – the invisible car. What is the point such a car, viewers asked? It was a vehicle which makes it very hard to recall its parking spot.
Later Work and Return
Following this, Tamahori discovered some more interesting form. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred the actor in dual parts of the dictator's brutal offspring the character and as well as Uday’s decoy double, employed to protect the young tyrant-princeling from assassination or abduction: this was a punchy, engaging film which avoided the usual doppelganger tropes. And in later years, he returned to the subject of Maori culture, making The Convert in 2023, collaborating with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter his partner. Tamahori was an outstanding filmmaker – but it remained his debut, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
