During 1994, the director Lee Tamahori made one of the most significant debuts of the decade, operating at full capacity with the gut-wrenching social-realist drama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes represent a blue-collar Maori household in South Auckland: the actor is the boozing, fighting, bragging dominant welfare claimant Jake, who returns from drinking in the pub with his pathetic sycophant mates to intimidate and assault his wife Beth, portrayed by Rena Owen, and their five children. He is entirely indifferent to the future of his two elder sons who have drifted into gang life and illegal activities, including his gentle daughter Grace, who shows promise as a writer. A son gets gang tattoos; another is sent to a youth detention where he is at least tutored in the traditions of indigenous heritage – the war dance and the traditional weapon – and gains self-worth and pride. Meanwhile at the disordered home, Grace is raped by Jake’s grotesque friend “Bully”; tragedy ensues, and the mother passionately confronts the wretched Jake: “Our people used to be fighters, but unlike you, they, they were people with mana, dignity; soulful beings …”
Emotional Violence and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori unleashed with such intense drama, and landed sledgehammer punches with bar sequences, domestic moments and the gang ritual initiation scenes, directing them with confidence and energy. He created a bold, heartfelt film with a very 90s streak of brash and trash. It succeeded with audiences and critics, 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 Diverse Work
In America, the director directed the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who care nothing for protocol, and then a script by Mamet survival thriller The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and his co-star as two men who journey through wild terrain after a plane crash. (This film gained cult status when the producer he wrote amusingly about the turbulent production of filming with a trained bear in his droll tinseltown memoir What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a serviceable thriller, and he earned again filming the second in the XXX series XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Career Shifts
Yet the peak, or maybe the low point, of his American work was directing the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; this was the Bond film mocked for having the poorest device in 007 history – a cloaked vehicle. What is the point such a car, viewers asked? This car which makes it very hard to recall its parking spot.
Later Work and Comeback
Following this, the director discovered some more interesting form. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred Dominic Cooper in the twin roles of Saddam Hussein’s hideous son the character and as well as his body double, employed to shield the heir from assassination or abduction: it was a punchy, watchable film which avoided the usual double cliches. In subsequent times, Tamahori went back to the theme of Maori culture, directing The Convert in 2023, working with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter Shane Danielsen. He proved to be an outstanding director – but it remained his debut, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
