In 1994, this film-maker Lee Tamahori delivered one of the most significant debuts of that era, operating at full capacity with the heartbreaking social-realist melodrama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes are a working-class indigenous family in South Auckland: the actor plays the drinking, fighting, bragging dominant benefit recipient Jake, who returns from pub visits with his pathetic sycophant mates to terrorise and assault Beth, his spouse, portrayed by Rena Owen, and their five children. He shows no concern to the future of his two elder sons who have fallen into gangland culture and crime, including his gentle daughter the girl, who has talent as a storyteller. One son gets gang tattoos; the other is taken to a youth detention where he is partly tutored in the ways of indigenous heritage – the war dance and the taiaha warrior spear – and learns dignity and self-respect. But back at Jake’s chaotic house, the daughter is raped by Jake’s grotesque friend “Uncle Bully”; disaster follows, and Beth forcefully challenges the wretched Jake: “Our people used to be fighters, but in contrast to you, Jake, they were people with mana, pride; people with spirit …”
Emotional Violence and Confident Direction
Tamahori unleashed with all this emotional violence, and delivered powerful blows with the pub scenes, the home scenes and the gang ritual initiation scenes, directing them with assurance and energy. He crafted a bold, sincere picture with a very 90s touch of edginess. It succeeded with viewers and critics, and – whether positive or negative – deeply impressed studio heads in Hollywood who could see how Tamahori could apply that dynamism and flair to commercial projects.
Hollywood Career and Diverse Work
Stateside, the director directed the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who care nothing for procedure, and then a script by Mamet survival thriller The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and his co-star as two men who trek through the wilderness after a plane crash. (This moderate movie became a cult favorite when its producer he wrote humorously about the chaotic circumstances of shooting with an animal actor in his witty Hollywood book 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 his American work was directing the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; this was the installment derided for having the worst gadget in 007 history – a cloaked vehicle. What is the point an invisible car, audiences wondered? It was a vehicle that makes it difficult to remember where you parked it.
Later Work and Return
After this, the director found some more interesting form. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured Dominic Cooper in dual parts of Saddam Hussein’s hideous son the character and also his body double, employed to protect the young tyrant-princeling from attack or abduction: it was a punchy, engaging movie which sidestepped typical doppelganger cliches. In subsequent times, Tamahori returned to the theme of Maori culture, directing The Convert in 2023, collaborating with writer his partner. He proved to be an outstanding director – but it was his debut, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
