In 1994, the film-maker Lee Tamahori delivered one of the most significant first films of the decade, operating at full capacity with the gut-wrenching socially conscious drama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes are a blue-collar Maori family in South Auckland: the actor is the boozing, brawling, boasting dominant welfare claimant the father, who comes home from pub visits with his weak followers to intimidate and assault his wife Beth, portrayed by Rena Owen, and their kids. He shows no concern to the future of his two elder sons who have fallen into gangland culture and illegal activities, as well as his sensitive daughter Grace, who has talent as a storyteller. One son receives tattoos; another is taken to a youth detention where he is partly educated in the ways of Maori culture – the haka and the traditional weapon – and learns self-worth and self-respect. But back at Jake’s chaotic house, Grace is assaulted by Jake’s grotesque friend “Uncle Bully”; disaster follows, and Beth forcefully challenges the wretched Jake: “Our ancestors once were warriors, but unlike you, they, they were individuals with honor, pride; soulful beings …”
Raw Emotion and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori let rip with all this intense drama, and delivered powerful blows with the pub scenes, the home scenes and gang initiation rituals, handling them with confidence and verve. He crafted a gutsy, heartfelt picture with a very 90s streak of brash and trash. It succeeded with audiences and critics, and – whether positive or negative – deeply impressed studio heads in the film industry who recognized how Tamahori could bring this energy and talent to commercial projects.
Hollywood Career and Varied Projects
In America, Tamahori directed the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who care nothing for procedure, and then the David Mamet-scripted survival thriller The Bear with the actor and Alec Baldwin as two men who journey through wild terrain after their plane crashes. (This moderate movie became a cult favorite when its 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 had another payday directing the second in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
Bond Film and Professional Changes
Yet the peak, or perhaps the low point, of his Hollywood career was directing the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; it was the Bond film mocked for having the worst gadget in the series – the invisible car. What is the point an invisible car, viewers asked? This car which makes it very hard to remember its parking spot.
Subsequent Projects and Return
After this, Tamahori discovered some more interesting form. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured the actor in the twin roles of the dictator's brutal offspring the character and also Uday’s decoy double, employed to protect the young tyrant-princeling from attack or abduction: it was a forceful, engaging film which avoided typical doppelganger tropes. In subsequent times, he went back to the subject of Maori culture, making The Convert in 2023, working with writer his partner. Tamahori was an exceptional filmmaker – but it was his first film, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
