In 1994, the director Lee Tamahori made one of the most significant first films of that era, operating at full capacity with his heartbreaking socially conscious melodrama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes represent a blue-collar Maori household in Auckland's south: the actor is the boozing, fighting, bragging dominant benefit recipient Jake, who returns from drinking in the pub with his weak followers to terrorise and assault his wife Beth, played by the actress, and their five children. He shows no concern to the fate of his older boys who have drifted into gang life and crime, including his sensitive daughter the girl, who shows promise as a storyteller. A 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 dignity and pride. Meanwhile at the disordered home, the daughter is raped by Jake’s grotesque friend “Uncle Bully”; tragedy ensues, and the mother passionately confronts the despicable Jake: “Our ancestors once were warriors, but in contrast to you, they, they were people with mana, dignity; soulful beings …”
Emotional Violence and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori unleashed with such emotional violence, and landed sledgehammer punches with bar sequences, domestic moments and the gang ritual initiation scenes, handling them with confidence and energy. He created a gutsy, sincere film with a very 90s touch of edginess. It succeeded with viewers and critics, and – for good or ill – strongly influenced industry executives in Hollywood who could see how Tamahori could apply that dynamism and talent to mainstream genre material.
Hollywood Career and Varied Projects
In America, Tamahori directed the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who ignore protocol, and then a script by Mamet adventure drama The Bear with the actor and his co-star as two men who journey through wild terrain after their plane crashes. (This film gained cult status when its producer he wrote humorously about the turbulent production of filming with an animal actor in his witty Hollywood book What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a decent suspense film, and he earned again filming the second in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
Bond Film and Professional Changes
But the high point, or maybe the low point, of Lee Tamahori’s American work was directing the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; it was the Bond film derided for having the worst gadget in the series – the invisible car. Why would anyone need such a car, viewers asked? It was a vehicle which makes it very hard to remember where you parked it.
Later Work and Return
Following this, the director discovered renewed creativity. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred the actor in the twin roles of the dictator's brutal offspring the character and as well as Uday’s decoy double, employed to shield the young tyrant-princeling from attack or kidnapping: it was a punchy, watchable movie which sidestepped the usual double tropes. And in later years, he went back to the subject of indigenous traditions, directing The Convert in 2023, collaborating with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter Shane Danielsen. He proved to be an outstanding director – but it remained his debut, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
