In 1994, the film-maker Lee Tamahori delivered one of the biggest first films of that era, operating at full capacity with the gut-wrenching social-realist drama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes represent a working-class indigenous household in Auckland's south: the actor is the boozing, fighting, bragging alpha-male welfare claimant the father, who returns from drinking in the pub with his pathetic sycophant mates to terrorise and assault his wife Beth, played by Rena Owen, and their five children. He is entirely indifferent to the future of his two elder sons who have drifted into gang life and crime, as well as his sensitive daughter Grace, who has talent as a writer. One son gets tattoos; another is taken to a juvenile reformatory where he is partly tutored in the ways of indigenous heritage – the haka and the taiaha warrior spear – and gains dignity and self-respect. Meanwhile 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 ancestors used to be fighters, but unlike you, Jake, they were people with mana, pride; people with spirit …”
Raw Emotion and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori unleashed with such intense drama, and landed sledgehammer punches with the pub scenes, the home scenes and gang initiation rituals, handling them with assurance and energy. He created a bold, sincere film with a distinctly 90s streak of edginess. It was a hit with audiences and critics, and – whether positive or negative – strongly influenced studio heads in Hollywood who could see how Tamahori could apply this energy and talent to mainstream genre material.
Hollywood Career and Diverse Work
In America, the director made the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who ignore protocol, and then a script by Mamet adventure drama The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and his co-star as characters who journey through wild terrain after their plane crashes. (This moderate movie became a cult favorite when the producer he wrote amusingly about the chaotic circumstances of shooting with an animal actor in his droll tinseltown memoir What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a serviceable thriller, and he had another payday filming the sequel in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
Bond Film and Career Shifts
But the high point, or maybe the nadir, of Lee Tamahori’s American work was directing the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; this was the installment derided for having the worst gadget in 007 history – the invisible car. What is the point an invisible car, viewers asked? This car which makes it very hard to remember its parking spot.
Subsequent Projects and Return
Following this, Tamahori found some more interesting form. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred the actor in dual parts of Saddam Hussein’s brutal offspring the character and as well as his body double, employed to shield the heir from assassination or kidnapping: it was a punchy, engaging movie which sidestepped the usual doppelganger cliches. And in later years, Tamahori went back to the theme of indigenous traditions, directing The Convert in 2023, collaborating with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter Shane Danielsen. Tamahori was an exceptional filmmaker – but it remained his first film, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
