During 1994, the film-maker Lee Tamahori made one of the most significant first films of that era, firing on all six cylinders with the gut-wrenching social-realist drama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes are a working-class indigenous family in Auckland's south: Temuera Morrison plays the boozing, fighting, bragging alpha-male benefit recipient Jake, who comes home from drinking in the pub with his weak followers to intimidate and abuse his wife Beth, portrayed by the actress, and their five children. He shows no concern to the future of his older boys who have drifted into gang life and crime, including his sensitive daughter Grace, who has talent as a writer. A son gets gang tattoos; the other is taken to a youth detention where he is at least tutored in the ways of Maori culture – the war dance and the traditional weapon – and gains dignity and pride. But back at Jake’s chaotic house, Grace is raped by Jake’s grotesque friend “Uncle Bully”; disaster follows, and the mother forcefully challenges the despicable Jake: “Our people used to be fighters, but in contrast to you, Jake, they were individuals with honor, pride; people with spirit …”
Emotional Violence and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori unleashed with all this intense drama, and landed sledgehammer punches with the pub scenes, domestic moments and gang initiation rituals, directing them with confidence and energy. He crafted a bold, heartfelt film with a distinctly 90s touch of edginess. It succeeded with viewers and critics, and – for good or ill – deeply impressed studio heads in the film industry who could see how he could bring that dynamism and flair to mainstream genre material.
American Films and Varied Projects
In America, the director made the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who care nothing for protocol, and then the David Mamet-scripted survival thriller The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and his co-star as characters who trek through the wilderness after a plane crash. (This film became a cult favorite when the producer he 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 directing the sequel in the XXX series XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Career Shifts
Yet the peak, or perhaps the low point, of his American work was directing the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; it was the installment derided for having the poorest device in 007 history – the invisible car. What is the point an invisible car, audiences wondered? This car which makes it very hard to remember its parking spot.
Later Work and Comeback
After this, the director discovered renewed creativity. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured the actor in dual parts of Saddam Hussein’s hideous son Uday and also Uday’s decoy double, employed to shield the heir from attack or kidnapping: it was a punchy, engaging film which avoided the usual double tropes. And in later years, he went back to the subject of indigenous traditions, directing The Convert in 2023, working with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter his partner. He proved to be an outstanding director – but it remained his debut, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
