During 1994, this film-maker Lee Tamahori made one of the biggest first films of that era, firing on all six cylinders with the heartbreaking social-realist melodrama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes represent a working-class Maori family in South Auckland: the actor is the boozing, fighting, boasting alpha-male benefit recipient the father, who comes home from pub visits with his weak followers to terrorise and assault his wife Beth, portrayed by Rena Owen, and their kids. He is entirely indifferent to the future of his two elder sons who have drifted into gangland culture and crime, as well as his sensitive daughter the girl, who has talent as a storyteller. A son receives gang tattoos; the other is taken to a youth detention where he is partly tutored in the ways of Maori culture – the haka and the traditional weapon – and gains dignity and pride. But back at the disordered home, Grace is raped by Jake’s grotesque friend “Uncle Bully”; disaster follows, and Beth forcefully challenges the despicable Jake: “Our ancestors used to be fighters, but unlike you, Jake, they were individuals with honor, dignity; soulful beings …”
Raw Emotion and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori unleashed with all this intense drama, and delivered powerful blows with the pub scenes, the home scenes and gang initiation rituals, handling them with assurance and energy. He crafted a gutsy, heartfelt film with a very 90s streak of edginess. It succeeded with audiences and critics, and – for good or ill – strongly influenced studio heads in the film industry who recognized how he could apply that dynamism and flair to mainstream genre material.
Hollywood Career and Diverse Work
Stateside, Tamahori made 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 his co-star as two men who trek through wild terrain after their plane crashes. (This moderate movie became a cult favorite when the producer he wrote humorously about the turbulent production of shooting with an animal actor in his droll tinseltown memoir What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a decent thriller, and he had another payday filming the sequel in the XXX series XXX State of the Union.
Bond Film and Professional Changes
Yet the peak, or maybe the nadir, of Lee Tamahori’s American work was directing the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; it was the Bond film mocked for having the worst gadget in 007 history – a cloaked vehicle. Why would anyone need an invisible car, audiences wondered? This car that makes it difficult to remember its parking spot.
Subsequent Projects and Comeback
After this, the director found renewed creativity. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred Dominic Cooper in the twin roles of Saddam Hussein’s hideous son the character and also Uday’s decoy double, employed to shield the heir from attack or abduction: this was a punchy, engaging film which sidestepped the usual doppelganger cliches. In subsequent times, he went back to the subject of Maori culture, making The Convert in 2023, working with writer Shane Danielsen. He proved to be an exceptional filmmaker – but it was his first film, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
