During 1994, this film-maker Lee Tamahori delivered one of the most significant debuts of the decade, operating at full capacity with the heartbreaking social-realist melodrama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes represent a working-class Maori family in Auckland's south: Temuera Morrison plays the drinking, fighting, bragging alpha-male benefit recipient Jake, who returns from drinking in the pub with his pathetic sycophant mates to terrorise and abuse his wife Beth, portrayed by Rena Owen, and their five children. He is entirely indifferent to the fate of his two elder sons who have drifted into gangland culture and crime, as well as his gentle daughter the girl, who has talent as a storyteller. One 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 gains self-worth and pride. Meanwhile at Jake’s chaotic house, Grace is assaulted by Jake’s grotesque friend “Bully”; disaster follows, and Beth passionately confronts the despicable Jake: “Our ancestors used to be fighters, but in contrast to you, Jake, they were people with mana, dignity; people with spirit …”
Raw Emotion and Confident Direction
Tamahori let rip with all this emotional violence, and landed sledgehammer punches with bar sequences, the home scenes and gang initiation rituals, handling them with confidence and energy. He crafted a gutsy, heartfelt film with a very 90s touch of edginess. It succeeded with audiences and reviewers, and – whether positive or negative – strongly influenced industry executives in the film industry who could see how he could apply this energy and flair to mainstream genre material.
Hollywood Career and Diverse Work
In America, Tamahori directed the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who care nothing for procedure, and then the David Mamet-scripted adventure drama The Bear with the actor and his co-star as characters who trek through wild terrain after their plane crashes. (This moderate movie gained cult status when its producer Art Linson wrote amusingly about the chaotic circumstances of shooting with a trained bear in his droll tinseltown memoir What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a serviceable suspense film, 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 maybe the nadir, of his American work was directing the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; this was the installment derided for having the poorest device in the series – the invisible car. Why would anyone need such a car, viewers asked? This car that makes it difficult to recall its parking spot.
Later Work and Comeback
After this, the director found renewed creativity. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred the actor in the twin roles of the dictator's brutal offspring the character and also his body double, employed to protect the young tyrant-princeling from attack or abduction: this was a punchy, watchable movie which avoided the usual double tropes. And in later years, Tamahori went back to the theme of Maori culture, directing The Convert in 2023, working with writer Shane Danielsen. He proved to be an exceptional filmmaker – but it was his debut, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
