During 1994, the film-maker Lee Tamahori delivered one of the biggest debuts of that era, firing on all six cylinders with the gut-wrenching social-realist melodrama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes are a working-class Maori household in Auckland's south: the actor is the drinking, brawling, bragging alpha-male welfare claimant the father, who comes home from drinking in the pub with his weak followers to terrorise and assault Beth, his spouse, portrayed by Rena Owen, and their kids. He shows no concern to the future of his older boys who have fallen into gangland culture and illegal activities, including his gentle daughter the girl, who has talent as a storyteller. One son gets gang tattoos; the other is taken to a juvenile reformatory where he is partly educated in the ways of indigenous heritage – the war dance and the taiaha warrior spear – and gains self-worth and pride. But back at Jake’s chaotic house, the daughter is raped by a repulsive acquaintance “Uncle Bully”; disaster follows, and Beth passionately confronts the wretched Jake: “Our ancestors used to be fighters, but in contrast to you, they, 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 bar sequences, domestic moments and gang initiation rituals, directing 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 audiences and reviewers, and – whether positive or negative – deeply impressed industry executives in the film industry who recognized how he could bring this energy and flair to commercial projects.
American Films and Varied Projects
Stateside, the director directed the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who ignore procedure, and then a script by Mamet adventure drama The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin as characters who trek through wild terrain after their plane crashes. (This moderate movie gained cult status when the producer he wrote humorously about the chaotic circumstances of filming with an animal actor 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 XXX series XXX State of the Union.
Bond Film and Career Shifts
Yet the peak, or perhaps the nadir, of Lee Tamahori’s American work was taking on the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; this was the installment derided for having the poorest device in the series – a cloaked vehicle. What is the point an invisible car, viewers asked? This car that makes it difficult to recall where you parked it.
Later Work and Comeback
Following this, the director discovered renewed creativity. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred Dominic Cooper in dual parts of the dictator's hideous son the character and also his body double, employed to shield the young tyrant-princeling from assassination or abduction: this was a punchy, engaging film which avoided the usual double cliches. In subsequent times, he returned to the theme of Maori culture, directing The Convert in 2023, working with writer his partner. Tamahori was an exceptional filmmaker – but it was his first film, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
