During 1994, this director Lee Tamahori made one of the most significant first films of the decade, firing on all six cylinders with his gut-wrenching social-realist drama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes represent a blue-collar indigenous household in Auckland's south: Temuera Morrison is the drinking, fighting, bragging alpha-male welfare claimant Jake, who comes home from drinking in the pub with his pathetic sycophant mates to terrorise and abuse Beth, his spouse, portrayed by Rena Owen, and their five children. He is entirely indifferent to the future of his older boys who have fallen into gang life and illegal activities, as well as his sensitive daughter the girl, who shows promise as a storyteller. A son gets gang tattoos; another is sent to a juvenile reformatory where he is partly educated in the traditions of Maori culture – the haka and the taiaha warrior spear – and learns dignity and pride. But back at Jake’s chaotic house, Grace is raped by a repulsive acquaintance “Bully”; tragedy ensues, and the mother forcefully challenges the despicable Jake: “Our ancestors used to be fighters, but in contrast to you, they, they were individuals with honor, pride; people with spirit …”
Emotional Violence and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori let rip with such emotional violence, and landed sledgehammer punches with bar sequences, the home scenes and gang initiation rituals, directing them with confidence and verve. He created a bold, sincere film with a distinctly 90s touch of edginess. It succeeded with viewers and critics, and – for good or ill – deeply impressed industry executives in the film industry who recognized how he could bring that dynamism and talent to mainstream genre material.
Hollywood Career and Diverse Work
Stateside, the director made the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who care nothing for procedure, and then the David Mamet-scripted survival thriller The Bear with the actor and Alec Baldwin as characters who trek through the wilderness after a plane crash. (This film gained cult status when its producer he wrote amusingly 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 directing the sequel in the XXX series XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Professional Changes
But the high point, or perhaps the nadir, of his Hollywood career was directing the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; it was the Bond film mocked 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 some more interesting form. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured Dominic Cooper in the twin roles of Saddam Hussein’s hideous son the character and as well as his body double, used to shield the young tyrant-princeling from assassination or abduction: it was a punchy, watchable film which sidestepped typical double tropes. In subsequent times, he returned to the subject of indigenous traditions, directing The Convert in 2023, collaborating with writer Shane Danielsen. Tamahori was an exceptional filmmaker – but it remained his first film, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
