During 1994, the film-maker 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 working-class Maori household in Auckland's south: the actor plays the boozing, fighting, bragging dominant benefit recipient Jake, who comes home from pub visits with his weak followers to terrorise and assault his wife Beth, played by Rena Owen, and their kids. He shows no concern to the fate of his two elder sons who have fallen into gangland culture and crime, as well as his sensitive daughter Grace, who has talent as a storyteller. A son gets tattoos; another is sent to a youth detention where he is at least tutored in the traditions of Maori culture – the haka and the traditional weapon – and gains dignity and self-respect. Meanwhile at Jake’s chaotic house, Grace is assaulted by a repulsive acquaintance “Uncle Bully”; disaster follows, and Beth passionately confronts the wretched Jake: “Our people once were warriors, but unlike you, they, they were people with mana, pride; soulful beings …”
Emotional Violence and Confident Direction
Tamahori unleashed with such emotional violence, and landed sledgehammer punches with the pub scenes, the home scenes and the gang ritual initiation scenes, handling them with confidence and energy. He created a bold, sincere film with a distinctly 90s touch of brash and trash. It was a hit with viewers and reviewers, and – for good or ill – deeply impressed industry executives in Hollywood who could see how he could apply that dynamism and flair to commercial projects.
Hollywood Career and Diverse Work
In America, Tamahori made the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who care nothing for procedure, and then the David Mamet-scripted survival thriller The Bear with the actor and his co-star as characters who trek through wild terrain after their plane crashes. (This film became a cult favorite when its producer he wrote amusingly about the chaotic circumstances of shooting with a trained bear in his witty Hollywood book What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a serviceable thriller, and he earned again filming the sequel in the triple-X franchise 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 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; it was the Bond film mocked for having the worst gadget in the series – the invisible car. What is the point an invisible car, audiences wondered? This car that makes it difficult to recall its parking spot.
Later Work and Comeback
Following this, the director found renewed creativity. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured Dominic Cooper in dual parts of Saddam Hussein’s brutal offspring the character and as well as Uday’s decoy double, employed to protect the young tyrant-princeling from assassination or kidnapping: it was a forceful, watchable movie which avoided the usual double cliches. In subsequent times, he returned to the subject of Maori culture, making The Convert in 2023, collaborating with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter his partner. He proved to be an outstanding director – but it was his debut, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
