In 1994, the film-maker Lee Tamahori delivered one of the biggest first films of the decade, operating at full capacity with the heartbreaking socially conscious drama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes represent a blue-collar indigenous family in South Auckland: the actor plays the drinking, fighting, boasting dominant benefit recipient the father, who returns 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 two elder sons who have fallen into gangland culture and crime, including his gentle daughter Grace, who shows promise as a writer. A son receives tattoos; another is taken to a juvenile reformatory where he is at least tutored in the traditions of indigenous heritage – the haka and the taiaha warrior spear – and gains dignity and self-respect. Meanwhile at Jake’s chaotic house, Grace is assaulted by a repulsive acquaintance “Bully”; disaster follows, and the mother forcefully challenges the despicable Jake: “Our people used to be fighters, but unlike you, Jake, they were people with mana, dignity; people with spirit …”
Raw Emotion and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori unleashed with such intense drama, and delivered powerful blows with bar sequences, domestic moments and the gang ritual initiation scenes, handling them with confidence and verve. He created a bold, heartfelt film with a distinctly 90s streak of edginess. It succeeded with viewers and critics, and – whether positive or negative – strongly influenced industry executives in the film industry who could see how he could apply that dynamism and flair to mainstream genre material.
Hollywood Career and Varied Projects
Stateside, the director directed the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who ignore protocol, and then the David Mamet-scripted adventure drama The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin as characters who trek through the wilderness after a plane crash. (This film gained cult status when its producer he wrote amusingly about the turbulent production of filming with an animal actor in his droll tinseltown memoir What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a decent suspense film, and he had another payday filming the second in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Professional Changes
Yet the peak, or maybe the nadir, of Lee Tamahori’s Hollywood career was directing the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; it was the Bond film derided for having the poorest device in 007 history – a cloaked vehicle. What is the point such a car, viewers asked? This car which makes it very hard to remember where you parked it.
Subsequent Projects and Comeback
Following this, Tamahori found some more interesting form. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured Dominic Cooper in the twin roles of Saddam Hussein’s brutal offspring the character and also his body double, employed to shield the young tyrant-princeling from attack or abduction: this was a forceful, engaging movie which avoided the usual double cliches. In subsequent times, he went back to the subject of Maori culture, directing The Convert in 2023, collaborating with writer Shane Danielsen. Tamahori was an outstanding filmmaker – but it remained his debut, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
