In 1994, the director Lee Tamahori delivered one of the biggest debuts of the decade, operating at full capacity with the gut-wrenching social-realist melodrama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes represent a working-class Maori family in South Auckland: the actor is the drinking, fighting, bragging dominant welfare claimant Jake, who comes home from drinking in the pub with his pathetic sycophant mates to terrorise and abuse his wife Beth, played by Rena Owen, and their five children. He shows no concern to the future of his older boys who have fallen into gangland culture and crime, including his gentle daughter the girl, who shows promise 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 gains dignity and self-respect. Meanwhile at the disordered home, the daughter is assaulted by Jake’s grotesque friend “Uncle Bully”; tragedy ensues, and Beth passionately confronts the wretched Jake: “Our people used to be fighters, but in contrast to you, they, they were individuals with honor, dignity; people with spirit …”
Raw Emotion and Confident Direction
Tamahori unleashed with such emotional violence, and delivered powerful blows with the pub scenes, the home scenes and the gang ritual initiation scenes, handling them with confidence and verve. He crafted a bold, sincere film with a very 90s streak of brash and trash. It succeeded with viewers and critics, and – whether positive or negative – strongly influenced industry executives in Hollywood who could see how he could apply this energy and flair to mainstream genre material.
Hollywood Career and Varied Projects
In America, Tamahori directed the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who ignore procedure, and then the David Mamet-scripted survival thriller The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and his co-star as two men who trek through wild terrain after a plane crash. (This film became a cult favorite when its producer he wrote humorously about the chaotic circumstances of shooting with an animal actor in his droll tinseltown memoir What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a decent suspense film, and he had another payday filming the second in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Professional Changes
Yet the peak, or perhaps the low point, of Lee Tamahori’s American work was directing the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; it was the installment mocked for having the poorest device in 007 history – the invisible car. What is the point such a car, audiences wondered? This car which makes it very hard to remember where you parked it.
Later Work and Return
After this, the director discovered some more interesting form. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred the actor in the twin roles of Saddam Hussein’s brutal offspring Uday and as well as Uday’s decoy double, employed to shield the heir from assassination or kidnapping: it was a forceful, engaging film which sidestepped the usual double cliches. In subsequent times, he went back to the theme of indigenous traditions, making The Convert in 2023, collaborating with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter his partner. Tamahori was an exceptional filmmaker – but it remained his first film, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
