During 1994, this director Lee Tamahori made one of the biggest debuts of the decade, firing on all six cylinders with his gut-wrenching social-realist drama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes are a working-class indigenous household in South Auckland: Temuera Morrison plays the drinking, brawling, bragging dominant welfare claimant Jake, who comes home from drinking in the pub with his weak followers to terrorise and abuse Beth, his spouse, portrayed by Rena Owen, and their kids. He is entirely indifferent to the future of his two elder sons who have fallen into gangland culture and illegal activities, as well as his gentle daughter Grace, who has talent as a writer. One son gets tattoos; another is taken to a juvenile reformatory where he is partly educated in the traditions of Maori culture – the haka and the taiaha warrior spear – and learns self-worth and pride. But back at the disordered home, the daughter is raped by a repulsive acquaintance “Bully”; disaster follows, and the mother passionately confronts the despicable Jake: “Our people used to be fighters, but in contrast to you, they, they were individuals with honor, pride; people with spirit …”
Emotional Violence and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori let rip with all this intense drama, and delivered powerful blows with the pub scenes, domestic moments and the gang ritual initiation scenes, handling them with assurance and verve. He created a bold, sincere film with a very 90s streak of brash and trash. It succeeded with viewers and critics, and – for good or ill – strongly influenced industry executives in Hollywood who could see how Tamahori could apply that dynamism and talent to mainstream genre material.
American Films and Diverse Work
Stateside, the director made the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who ignore procedure, and then a script by Mamet survival thriller The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin as two men who journey through wild terrain after their plane crashes. (This film became a cult favorite when the 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 decent suspense film, and he earned again filming the sequel in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
Bond Film and Career Shifts
Yet the peak, or perhaps the nadir, of Lee Tamahori’s Hollywood career was taking on the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; it was the installment derided for having the worst gadget in the series – a cloaked vehicle. Why would anyone need such a car, audiences wondered? This car which makes it very hard to remember its parking spot.
Later Work and Comeback
After this, Tamahori discovered some more interesting form. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred Dominic Cooper in dual parts of the dictator's brutal offspring Uday and as well as Uday’s decoy double, employed to shield the young tyrant-princeling from assassination or abduction: it was a punchy, engaging movie which sidestepped typical doppelganger cliches. And in later years, he went back to the subject of indigenous traditions, directing The Convert in 2023, working with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter his partner. He proved to be an outstanding filmmaker – but it was his debut, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.