In 1994, the film-maker Lee Tamahori made one of the most significant first films of the decade, firing on all six cylinders with the gut-wrenching socially conscious drama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes represent a blue-collar indigenous household in South Auckland: Temuera Morrison is the drinking, fighting, boasting alpha-male benefit recipient Jake, who returns from drinking in the pub with his weak followers to terrorise and abuse Beth, his spouse, portrayed by Rena Owen, and their five children. He is entirely indifferent to the fate of his older boys who have drifted into gangland culture and crime, including his gentle daughter Grace, who shows promise as a writer. One son receives gang tattoos; the other is taken to a juvenile reformatory where he is partly educated in the traditions of Maori culture – the haka and the traditional weapon – and gains dignity and pride. Meanwhile at Jake’s chaotic house, Grace is raped by Jake’s grotesque friend “Bully”; disaster follows, and the mother forcefully challenges the wretched 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 all this emotional violence, and landed sledgehammer punches with the pub scenes, the home scenes and gang initiation rituals, directing them with confidence and verve. He created a gutsy, heartfelt film with a very 90s touch of edginess. It succeeded with audiences and reviewers, and – whether positive or negative – strongly influenced industry executives in the film industry who recognized how he could apply this energy and talent to mainstream genre material.
American Films and Varied Projects
In America, the director directed the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who care nothing for protocol, and then a script by Mamet survival thriller The Bear with the actor and Alec Baldwin as characters who trek through the wilderness after a plane crash. (This moderate movie gained cult status when its producer he wrote amusingly about the turbulent production of shooting with an animal actor in his witty Hollywood book What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a serviceable suspense film, and he earned again filming the second in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Career Shifts
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 the star; it was the installment mocked for having the worst gadget in 007 history – the invisible car. Why would anyone need such a car, audiences wondered? It was a vehicle which makes it very hard to recall its parking spot.
Subsequent Projects and Return
Following this, the director found some more interesting form. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured the actor in the twin roles of the dictator's hideous son the character and also Uday’s decoy double, used to protect the young tyrant-princeling from attack or kidnapping: it was a forceful, watchable film which sidestepped the usual double tropes. In subsequent times, he returned to the theme of Maori culture, making The Convert in 2023, working with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter his partner. Tamahori was an outstanding director – but it was his first film, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
