In 1994, the director Lee Tamahori made one of the most significant debuts of that era, firing on all six cylinders with the gut-wrenching socially conscious melodrama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes are a blue-collar indigenous household in Auckland's south: the actor plays the drinking, fighting, bragging alpha-male benefit recipient Jake, who comes home from pub visits with his pathetic sycophant mates to intimidate and abuse his wife Beth, portrayed by Rena Owen, and their five children. He shows no concern to the fate of his two elder sons who have drifted into gangland culture and illegal activities, as well as his gentle daughter the girl, who shows promise as a storyteller. A son receives gang tattoos; the other is taken to a juvenile reformatory where he is partly educated in the ways of Maori culture – the war dance and the taiaha warrior spear – and learns dignity and self-respect. Meanwhile at Jake’s chaotic house, Grace is raped by Jake’s grotesque friend “Uncle Bully”; disaster follows, and the mother forcefully challenges the wretched Jake: “Our ancestors used to be fighters, but unlike you, Jake, they were people with mana, pride; people with spirit …”
Raw Emotion and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori let rip with all this emotional violence, and delivered powerful blows with bar sequences, the home scenes and the gang ritual initiation scenes, directing them with confidence and verve. He crafted a gutsy, heartfelt picture with a distinctly 90s streak of brash and trash. It succeeded with viewers and critics, and – whether positive or negative – deeply impressed studio heads in the film industry who could see how he could bring that dynamism and talent to mainstream genre material.
Hollywood Career and Varied Projects
Stateside, Tamahori directed the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who ignore protocol, and then a script by Mamet adventure drama The Bear with the actor and Alec Baldwin as characters who journey through wild terrain after their plane crashes. (This film became a cult favorite when the producer he wrote humorously about the turbulent production of shooting with a trained bear in his droll tinseltown memoir What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a serviceable suspense film, and he had another payday filming the second in the XXX series XXX State of the Union.
Bond Film and Career Shifts
But the high point, or perhaps the nadir, of his American work was taking on the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; this was the Bond film derided for having the worst gadget in 007 history – a cloaked vehicle. What is the point an invisible car, viewers asked? This car which makes it very hard to remember its parking spot.
Subsequent Projects and Comeback
After this, the director discovered renewed creativity. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred Dominic Cooper in the twin roles of the dictator's hideous son Uday and also Uday’s decoy double, used to shield the heir from attack or kidnapping: this was a forceful, engaging film which avoided the usual doppelganger cliches. And in later years, Tamahori returned to the subject of Maori culture, making The Convert in 2023, working with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter Shane Danielsen. He proved to be an exceptional director – but it was his first film, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
