During 1994, this film-maker Lee Tamahori delivered one of the biggest debuts of that era, firing on all six cylinders with the gut-wrenching socially conscious melodrama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes represent a blue-collar Maori family in Auckland's south: the actor plays the drinking, brawling, boasting dominant welfare claimant Jake, who comes home from pub visits with his weak followers to intimidate and assault Beth, his spouse, played by Rena Owen, and their five children. He shows no concern to the future of his older boys who have drifted into gangland culture and crime, including his gentle daughter Grace, who has talent as a storyteller. A son gets gang tattoos; the other is sent to a youth detention where he is partly educated in the traditions of indigenous heritage – the haka and the taiaha warrior spear – and gains dignity and pride. Meanwhile at Jake’s chaotic house, the daughter is assaulted by a repulsive acquaintance “Bully”; tragedy ensues, and Beth forcefully challenges the despicable Jake: “Our ancestors used to be fighters, but in contrast to you, they, they were people with mana, dignity; soulful beings …”
Emotional Violence and Confident Direction
Tamahori let rip with all this intense drama, and delivered powerful blows with the pub scenes, the home scenes and gang initiation rituals, directing them with assurance and verve. He created a gutsy, heartfelt picture with a very 90s touch of brash and trash. It was a hit with viewers and reviewers, and – for good or ill – strongly influenced industry executives in the film industry who could see how he could bring this energy and talent to commercial projects.
Hollywood Career and Varied Projects
In America, Tamahori made 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 the actor and his co-star as two men who journey through wild terrain after a plane crash. (This moderate movie gained cult status when the producer Art Linson 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 serviceable suspense film, and he had another payday directing the sequel in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
Bond Film and Career Shifts
Yet the peak, or perhaps the low point, of his Hollywood career was directing the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; it was the installment mocked for having the poorest device in the series – a cloaked vehicle. Why would anyone need such a car, viewers asked? It was a vehicle that makes it difficult to recall its parking spot.
Later Work and Return
After this, Tamahori found renewed creativity. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred the actor in dual parts of Saddam Hussein’s brutal offspring Uday and as well as his body double, employed to shield the young tyrant-princeling from assassination or kidnapping: this was a punchy, watchable movie which avoided typical double cliches. In subsequent times, Tamahori returned to the subject of Maori culture, making The Convert in 2023, working with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter Shane Danielsen. Tamahori was an exceptional director – but it remained his debut, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
