In 1994, this film-maker Lee Tamahori delivered one of the biggest first films of that era, firing on all six cylinders with the heartbreaking social-realist drama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes represent a blue-collar indigenous household in Auckland's south: the actor is the drinking, brawling, boasting alpha-male benefit recipient Jake, who comes home from drinking in the pub with his pathetic sycophant mates to intimidate and assault Beth, his spouse, played by Rena Owen, and their kids. He is entirely indifferent to the future of his older boys who have fallen into gangland culture and illegal activities, including his gentle daughter Grace, who shows promise as a writer. A son gets tattoos; the other is sent to a youth detention where he is partly tutored in the traditions of Maori culture – the war dance and the traditional weapon – and gains dignity and self-respect. But back at the disordered home, the daughter is raped by Jake’s grotesque friend “Bully”; disaster follows, and the mother forcefully challenges the wretched Jake: “Our ancestors once were warriors, but unlike you, Jake, they were people with mana, pride; people with spirit …”
Emotional Violence and Confident Direction
Tamahori let rip with all this intense drama, and landed sledgehammer punches with bar sequences, the home scenes and the gang ritual initiation scenes, handling them with confidence and verve. He created a gutsy, heartfelt film with a distinctly 90s streak of brash and trash. It succeeded with viewers and critics, and – for good or ill – deeply impressed industry executives in Hollywood who recognized how he could apply that dynamism and talent to commercial projects.
Hollywood Career and Diverse Work
Stateside, the director directed the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who ignore procedure, and then the David Mamet-scripted adventure drama The Bear with the actor and his co-star as characters who trek through wild terrain after a plane crash. (This film gained cult status when its producer Art Linson wrote amusingly about the chaotic circumstances of filming with a trained bear in his witty Hollywood book What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a serviceable suspense film, and he had another payday filming the second in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Career Shifts
Yet the peak, or maybe the nadir, of Lee Tamahori’s American work was taking on the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; this was the Bond film derided for having the worst gadget in the series – the invisible car. What is the point such a car, audiences wondered? It was a vehicle that makes it difficult to remember where you parked it.
Later Work and Comeback
After this, the director found some more interesting form. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured the actor in the twin roles of the dictator's hideous son Uday and as well as his body double, used to protect the heir from assassination or kidnapping: this was a punchy, engaging movie which sidestepped the usual double tropes. In subsequent times, he returned 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 debut, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
