In 1994, this film-maker Lee Tamahori delivered one of the most significant debuts of that era, firing on all six cylinders with the heartbreaking socially conscious drama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes represent a blue-collar Maori household in South Auckland: Temuera Morrison is the drinking, fighting, boasting alpha-male welfare claimant Jake, who returns from pub visits with his weak followers to intimidate and assault Beth, his spouse, portrayed by Rena Owen, and their five children. He is entirely indifferent to the fate of his two elder sons who have fallen into gang life and crime, as well as his gentle daughter the girl, who shows promise as a writer. A son gets gang tattoos; another is sent to a youth detention where he is partly tutored in the ways of indigenous heritage – the haka and the traditional weapon – and learns self-worth and pride. Meanwhile at Jake’s chaotic house, Grace is raped by a repulsive acquaintance “Uncle Bully”; tragedy ensues, and Beth passionately confronts the despicable Jake: “Our people used to be fighters, but in contrast to you, Jake, they were people with mana, pride; people with spirit …”
Raw Emotion and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori unleashed with such intense drama, and landed sledgehammer punches with the pub scenes, the home scenes and the gang ritual initiation scenes, handling them with confidence and verve. He crafted a gutsy, sincere film with a very 90s streak of brash and trash. It was a hit with viewers and critics, and – for good or ill – strongly influenced industry executives in Hollywood who could see how he could apply that dynamism and flair to commercial projects.
Hollywood Career and Diverse Work
In America, Tamahori directed the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who care nothing for protocol, and then the David Mamet-scripted adventure drama The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and his co-star as characters who trek through the wilderness after a plane crash. (This film gained cult status when the producer Art Linson wrote humorously about the chaotic circumstances of filming with a trained bear in his droll tinseltown memoir What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a decent thriller, and he earned again filming the sequel in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Professional Changes
But the high point, or perhaps the nadir, of Lee Tamahori’s Hollywood career was directing the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; this was the Bond film derided for having the poorest device in the series – a cloaked vehicle. What is the point such a car, viewers asked? It was a vehicle that makes it difficult to recall its parking spot.
Subsequent Projects and Comeback
Following this, the director found renewed creativity. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred the actor in the twin roles of the dictator's brutal offspring Uday and as well as Uday’s decoy double, employed to shield the young tyrant-princeling from attack or kidnapping: it was a forceful, watchable movie which avoided typical doppelganger cliches. And in later years, he went back to the subject of Maori culture, making The Convert in 2023, working with writer Shane Danielsen. He proved to be an outstanding filmmaker – but it was his first film, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
