In 1994, this director Lee Tamahori delivered one of the most significant debuts of that era, operating at full capacity with the heartbreaking social-realist drama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes represent a working-class Maori household in Auckland's south: the actor plays the drinking, brawling, bragging dominant welfare claimant the father, who comes home from drinking in the pub with his weak followers to terrorise and abuse Beth, his spouse, played by Rena Owen, and their five children. He shows no concern to the future of his older boys who have drifted into gang life and crime, as well as his sensitive daughter Grace, who shows promise as a writer. One son receives tattoos; the other is sent to a juvenile reformatory where he is at least educated in the ways of indigenous heritage – the haka and the traditional weapon – and learns dignity and pride. But back at the disordered home, the daughter is assaulted by a repulsive acquaintance “Uncle Bully”; tragedy ensues, and the mother forcefully challenges the despicable Jake: “Our people used to be fighters, but unlike you, they, they were individuals with honor, dignity; people with spirit …”
Raw Emotion and Confident Direction
Tamahori unleashed with such emotional violence, and delivered powerful blows with the pub scenes, domestic moments and the gang ritual initiation scenes, directing them with assurance and energy. He created a gutsy, sincere picture with a very 90s streak of brash and trash. It was a hit with audiences and reviewers, and – for good or ill – deeply impressed studio heads in Hollywood who could see how Tamahori could bring this energy and flair to mainstream genre material.
Hollywood Career and Varied Projects
In America, the director made the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who ignore procedure, and then the David Mamet-scripted survival thriller The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin as characters who trek through the wilderness after a plane crash. (This moderate movie became a cult favorite when its producer he wrote amusingly about the turbulent production of shooting with an animal actor in his witty Hollywood book What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a decent thriller, and he earned again filming the sequel in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
Bond Film and Professional Changes
But the high point, or perhaps the low point, of Lee Tamahori’s Hollywood career was directing the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; it was the installment derided for having the poorest device in 007 history – a cloaked vehicle. What is the point an invisible car, viewers asked? It was a vehicle which makes it very hard to recall its parking spot.
Later Work and Return
Following this, Tamahori found some more interesting form. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured the actor in dual parts of Saddam Hussein’s brutal offspring the character and also his body double, employed to protect the heir from assassination or abduction: it was a punchy, watchable film which sidestepped typical doppelganger tropes. In subsequent times, he went back to the subject of Maori culture, directing The Convert in 2023, collaborating with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter Shane Danielsen. Tamahori was an exceptional filmmaker – but it was his debut, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
