During 1994, the director Lee Tamahori delivered one of the most significant first films of the decade, operating at full capacity with his heartbreaking socially conscious drama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes represent a working-class indigenous household in South Auckland: the actor is the drinking, fighting, bragging alpha-male welfare claimant the father, who comes home from drinking in the pub with his pathetic sycophant mates to terrorise and abuse Beth, his spouse, played by the actress, and their kids. He shows no concern to the future of his older boys who have drifted into gangland culture and crime, as well as his gentle daughter Grace, who has talent as a writer. One son gets gang tattoos; another is sent to a juvenile reformatory where he is at least tutored in the ways of indigenous heritage – the haka and the traditional weapon – and gains dignity and self-respect. Meanwhile at Jake’s chaotic house, Grace is raped by a repulsive acquaintance “Uncle Bully”; disaster follows, and the mother forcefully challenges the despicable Jake: “Our ancestors once were warriors, but in contrast to you, they, they were individuals with honor, dignity; people with spirit …”
Raw Emotion and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori let rip with all this emotional violence, and landed sledgehammer punches with bar sequences, the home scenes and gang initiation rituals, handling them with assurance and verve. He crafted a gutsy, sincere film with a distinctly 90s streak of brash and trash. It succeeded with viewers and reviewers, and – whether positive or negative – strongly influenced studio heads in the film industry who recognized how he could bring this energy and flair to mainstream genre material.
Hollywood Career and Varied Projects
In America, the director directed the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who care nothing for procedure, and then a script by Mamet survival thriller The Bear with the actor and Alec Baldwin as two men who journey through the wilderness after their plane crashes. (This film gained cult status when its producer Art Linson wrote amusingly about the chaotic circumstances of shooting with an animal actor in his witty Hollywood book What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a serviceable suspense film, and he earned again directing the second in the XXX series XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Career Shifts
But the high point, or perhaps the low point, of Lee Tamahori’s American work 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. Why would anyone need an invisible car, viewers asked? It was a vehicle that makes it difficult to recall where you parked it.
Subsequent Projects and Comeback
Following this, the director found some more interesting form. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred the actor in the twin roles of Saddam Hussein’s hideous son Uday and as well as Uday’s decoy double, employed to protect the young tyrant-princeling from assassination or abduction: this was a punchy, engaging movie which sidestepped typical doppelganger cliches. And in later years, he went back to the theme of indigenous traditions, directing The Convert in 2023, working with writer Shane Danielsen. He proved to be an outstanding filmmaker – but it was his first film, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
