In 1994, this director Lee Tamahori made one of the most significant first films of that era, firing on all six cylinders with the heartbreaking social-realist melodrama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes are a blue-collar indigenous household in South Auckland: the actor is the boozing, brawling, bragging dominant benefit recipient Jake, who returns from pub visits with his weak followers to intimidate and assault his wife Beth, portrayed by the actress, and their five children. He shows no concern to the future of his older boys who have fallen into gang life and crime, including his sensitive 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 at least educated in the traditions of Maori culture – the haka and the traditional weapon – and learns self-worth and self-respect. Meanwhile at Jake’s chaotic house, Grace is assaulted by Jake’s grotesque friend “Uncle Bully”; disaster follows, and the mother forcefully challenges the despicable Jake: “Our ancestors used to be fighters, but unlike you, Jake, they were people with mana, dignity; soulful beings …”
Raw Emotion and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori let rip with such intense drama, and delivered powerful blows with the pub scenes, the home scenes and gang initiation rituals, handling them with confidence and energy. He crafted a bold, sincere film with a distinctly 90s streak of brash and trash. It was a hit with audiences and critics, and – for good or ill – deeply impressed industry executives in the film industry who recognized how Tamahori could apply this energy and flair to mainstream genre material.
American Films and Varied Projects
In America, the director directed 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 two men who journey through wild terrain after a plane crash. (This moderate movie became a cult favorite when the producer Art Linson wrote amusingly about the chaotic circumstances of filming with an animal actor in his witty Hollywood book What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a serviceable thriller, and he earned again filming the second in the XXX series XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Career Shifts
But the high point, or maybe the low point, of Lee Tamahori’s Hollywood career was directing the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; it was the installment derided for having the worst gadget in 007 history – the invisible car. Why would anyone need an invisible car, viewers asked? This car which makes it very hard to remember where you parked it.
Subsequent Projects and Comeback
Following this, the director found renewed creativity. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred Dominic Cooper in dual parts of the dictator's hideous son Uday and as well as his body double, employed to shield the heir from attack or abduction: it was a forceful, engaging film which sidestepped typical doppelganger tropes. And in later years, he went back to the subject of indigenous traditions, making The Convert in 2023, working with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter Shane Danielsen. Tamahori was an outstanding filmmaker – but it remained his first film, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
