In 1994, the director Lee Tamahori made one of the biggest first films of the decade, firing on all six cylinders with the gut-wrenching socially conscious melodrama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes are a blue-collar indigenous household in South Auckland: Temuera Morrison is the boozing, fighting, boasting dominant benefit recipient Jake, who comes home from pub visits with his pathetic sycophant mates to intimidate and assault his wife Beth, portrayed by the actress, and their kids. He is entirely indifferent to the future of his older boys who have drifted into gang life and illegal activities, including his sensitive daughter Grace, who shows promise as a writer. A son gets gang tattoos; the other is taken to a juvenile reformatory where he is at least educated in the traditions of Maori culture – the war dance and the taiaha warrior spear – and gains dignity and pride. Meanwhile at the disordered home, Grace is assaulted by a repulsive acquaintance “Uncle Bully”; tragedy ensues, and the mother forcefully challenges the despicable Jake: “Our people used to be fighters, but unlike you, Jake, they were individuals with honor, pride; soulful beings …”
Raw Emotion and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori let rip with such intense drama, and landed sledgehammer punches with the pub scenes, the home scenes and gang initiation rituals, handling them with assurance and verve. He created a gutsy, sincere film with a distinctly 90s streak of edginess. It succeeded with audiences and critics, and – for good or ill – deeply impressed studio heads in Hollywood who recognized how he could apply that dynamism and talent to mainstream genre material.
American Films and Diverse Work
Stateside, the director directed the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who ignore procedure, and then a script by Mamet adventure drama The Bear with the actor and his co-star as two men who trek through wild terrain after a plane crash. (This moderate movie became a cult favorite when the producer Art Linson wrote humorously about the turbulent production of filming 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 sequel in the XXX series XXX State of the Union.
Bond Film and Professional Changes
Yet the peak, or maybe the low point, of Lee Tamahori’s Hollywood career was directing the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; this was the installment mocked for having the worst gadget in the series – the invisible car. Why would anyone need such a car, audiences wondered? This car that makes it difficult to recall where you parked it.
Later Work and Return
Following this, the director discovered some more interesting form. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured the actor in the twin roles of the dictator's hideous son Uday and as well as his body double, used to shield the young tyrant-princeling from attack or abduction: it was a forceful, engaging movie which sidestepped the usual doppelganger tropes. In subsequent times, he went back to the subject of Maori culture, directing The Convert in 2023, collaborating with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter his partner. He proved to be an exceptional director – but it remained his first film, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
