In 1994, the director Lee Tamahori delivered one of the biggest debuts of that era, operating at full capacity with the gut-wrenching socially conscious melodrama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes represent a working-class Maori household in Auckland's south: Temuera Morrison is the drinking, brawling, bragging dominant benefit recipient Jake, who comes home from pub visits with his pathetic sycophant mates to intimidate and assault Beth, his spouse, played by the actress, and their five children. He is entirely indifferent to the future of his two elder sons who have fallen into gang life and crime, including his gentle daughter the girl, who shows promise as a storyteller. A son gets gang tattoos; the other is taken to a juvenile reformatory where he is partly tutored in the traditions of Maori culture – the haka and the traditional weapon – and gains self-worth and self-respect. Meanwhile at Jake’s chaotic house, Grace is raped by Jake’s grotesque friend “Bully”; disaster follows, and the mother passionately confronts the wretched Jake: “Our ancestors once were warriors, but in contrast to you, Jake, they were people with mana, pride; people with spirit …”
Raw Emotion and Confident Direction
Tamahori let rip with all this intense drama, and landed sledgehammer punches with bar sequences, the home scenes and the gang ritual initiation scenes, handling them with assurance and verve. He crafted a bold, heartfelt picture with a distinctly 90s streak of brash and trash. It was a hit with audiences and critics, and – for good or ill – strongly influenced studio heads in the film industry who recognized how he could bring that dynamism and flair to mainstream genre material.
American Films and Diverse Work
In America, the director made the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who care nothing for protocol, and then the David Mamet-scripted survival thriller The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and his co-star as characters who journey through the wilderness after their plane crashes. (This moderate movie became a cult favorite when the producer Art Linson wrote amusingly about the chaotic circumstances of filming 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 directing the second in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
Bond Film and Professional Changes
Yet the peak, or perhaps the low point, of Lee Tamahori’s Hollywood career was directing the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; it was the Bond film mocked for having the poorest device in the series – a cloaked vehicle. Why would anyone need such a car, audiences wondered? This car which makes it very hard to recall where you parked it.
Later Work and Comeback
Following this, the director found some more interesting form. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred Dominic Cooper in dual parts of Saddam Hussein’s hideous son Uday and also his body double, used to shield the young tyrant-princeling from attack or kidnapping: it was a forceful, engaging film which sidestepped typical doppelganger cliches. And in later years, he went back to the theme of Maori culture, directing The Convert in 2023, collaborating with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter his partner. He proved to be an exceptional director – but it was his debut, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
