In 1994, the film-maker Lee Tamahori delivered one of the most significant debuts of the decade, operating at full capacity with his heartbreaking socially conscious melodrama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes are a blue-collar Maori family in Auckland's south: the actor plays the boozing, brawling, bragging dominant benefit recipient Jake, who returns from pub visits with his weak followers to intimidate and abuse his wife Beth, played by the actress, and their five children. He is entirely indifferent to the fate of his older boys who have drifted into gang life and illegal activities, including his gentle daughter Grace, who has talent as a storyteller. One son gets gang tattoos; another is sent to a juvenile reformatory where he is at least tutored in the traditions of indigenous heritage – the haka and the traditional weapon – and learns dignity and self-respect. But back at the disordered home, the daughter is raped by a repulsive acquaintance “Bully”; tragedy ensues, and the mother passionately confronts the despicable Jake: “Our ancestors once were warriors, but unlike you, they, they were people with mana, pride; people with spirit …”
Emotional Violence and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori unleashed with such emotional violence, and delivered powerful blows with bar sequences, domestic moments and gang initiation rituals, directing them with assurance and verve. He created a gutsy, sincere film with a very 90s streak of edginess. It was a hit with audiences and critics, and – whether positive or negative – deeply impressed industry executives in Hollywood who recognized how he could bring that dynamism and flair to mainstream genre material.
American Films and Diverse Work
Stateside, Tamahori made the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who ignore protocol, and then the David Mamet-scripted adventure drama The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and his co-star as characters who journey through wild terrain after their plane crashes. (This film gained cult status when the producer Art Linson wrote amusingly about the chaotic circumstances of filming with an animal actor in his droll tinseltown memoir What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a serviceable suspense film, and he had another payday directing the second in the XXX series XXX State of the Union.
Bond Film and Career Shifts
Yet the peak, or perhaps the low point, of his Hollywood career was directing the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; it was the Bond film derided for having the poorest device in the series – the invisible car. Why would anyone need an invisible car, viewers asked? This car that makes it difficult to remember where you parked it.
Subsequent Projects and Comeback
After this, Tamahori found some more interesting form. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred Dominic Cooper in dual parts of Saddam Hussein’s brutal offspring Uday and also his body double, employed to shield the young tyrant-princeling from attack or abduction: this was a punchy, engaging film which sidestepped typical double tropes. And in later years, he went back to the subject of Maori culture, making The Convert in 2023, working with writer his partner. He proved to be an exceptional director – but it remained his debut, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
