During 1994, the director Lee Tamahori delivered one of the most significant debuts of the decade, firing on all six cylinders with the gut-wrenching socially conscious drama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes represent a blue-collar indigenous family in South Auckland: the actor is the drinking, fighting, boasting alpha-male benefit recipient the father, who returns from pub visits with his weak followers to terrorise and assault Beth, his spouse, played by the actress, and their kids. He is entirely indifferent to the fate of his older boys who have drifted into gang life and illegal activities, including his sensitive daughter the girl, who shows promise as a writer. One son gets gang tattoos; another is taken to a youth detention where he is at least tutored in the ways of indigenous heritage – the haka and the taiaha warrior spear – and learns dignity and self-respect. But back at Jake’s chaotic house, Grace is raped by Jake’s grotesque friend “Bully”; disaster follows, and Beth passionately confronts the despicable Jake: “Our people once were warriors, but unlike you, they, they were people with mana, pride; people with spirit …”
Emotional Violence and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori let rip with all this emotional violence, and landed sledgehammer punches with the pub scenes, domestic moments and the gang ritual initiation scenes, directing them with confidence and verve. He created a gutsy, sincere picture with a very 90s touch of brash and trash. It was a hit with viewers and reviewers, and – whether positive or negative – deeply impressed industry executives in Hollywood who could see how he could apply this energy and flair to commercial projects.
Hollywood Career and Varied Projects
In America, the director made the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops 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 journey through wild terrain after a plane crash. (This film gained cult status when its producer Art Linson wrote amusingly about the chaotic circumstances of filming with an animal actor in his droll tinseltown memoir What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a decent suspense film, and he earned again filming the second in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Professional Changes
Yet the peak, or maybe the nadir, of Lee Tamahori’s Hollywood career was taking on the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; it was the installment mocked for having the poorest device in the series – a cloaked vehicle. Why would anyone need such a car, audiences wondered? It was a vehicle which makes it very hard to recall its parking spot.
Later Work and Return
After this, the director found renewed creativity. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured Dominic Cooper in dual parts of Saddam Hussein’s brutal offspring the character and as well as his body double, used to protect the young tyrant-princeling from attack or abduction: it was a forceful, watchable film which sidestepped the usual doppelganger cliches. And in later years, he returned to the subject of indigenous traditions, making The Convert in 2023, collaborating with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter his partner. He proved to be an outstanding filmmaker – but it was his first film, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
