In 1994, the director Lee Tamahori made one of the biggest debuts of the decade, firing on all six cylinders with his gut-wrenching social-realist melodrama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes are a blue-collar Maori family in Auckland's south: Temuera Morrison is the boozing, brawling, bragging dominant welfare claimant Jake, who returns from drinking in the pub with his weak followers to intimidate and abuse Beth, his spouse, portrayed by the actress, and their five children. He is entirely indifferent to the fate of his two elder sons who have fallen into gang life and crime, including his sensitive daughter the girl, who shows promise as a storyteller. One son receives tattoos; the other is taken to a juvenile reformatory where he is at least tutored in the traditions of Maori culture – the war dance and the traditional weapon – and learns dignity and self-respect. But back at Jake’s chaotic house, Grace is raped by Jake’s grotesque friend “Uncle Bully”; tragedy ensues, and Beth passionately confronts the despicable Jake: “Our ancestors used to be fighters, but unlike you, they, they were people with mana, dignity; people with spirit …”
Raw Emotion and Confident Direction
Tamahori let rip with such emotional violence, and delivered powerful blows with the pub scenes, domestic moments and the gang ritual initiation scenes, handling them with confidence and verve. He created a bold, heartfelt film with a very 90s streak of brash and trash. It succeeded with audiences and critics, and – for good or ill – strongly influenced studio heads in the film industry who could see how Tamahori could bring this energy and talent to commercial projects.
American Films and Varied Projects
Stateside, the director directed the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who care nothing for procedure, and then a script by Mamet survival thriller The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin as characters who journey through wild terrain after their plane crashes. (This film gained cult status when its producer Art Linson wrote amusingly 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 earned again directing the sequel in the XXX series XXX State of the Union.
Bond Film and Career Shifts
But the high point, or maybe the nadir, of his American work was directing the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; it was the installment mocked for having the poorest device in the series – the invisible car. Why would anyone need such a car, audiences wondered? This car that makes it difficult to recall its parking spot.
Subsequent Projects and Return
Following this, Tamahori found renewed creativity. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured the actor in the twin roles of Saddam Hussein’s brutal offspring Uday and as well as his body double, used to shield the young tyrant-princeling from attack or abduction: this was a punchy, engaging movie which sidestepped the usual doppelganger tropes. In subsequent times, he returned to the theme of Maori culture, making The Convert in 2023, working with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter Shane Danielsen. Tamahori was an outstanding director – but it was his debut, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
