During 1994, the film-maker Lee Tamahori delivered one of the biggest debuts of the decade, firing on all six cylinders with his heartbreaking socially conscious drama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes represent a working-class Maori household in Auckland's south: Temuera Morrison plays the drinking, brawling, boasting alpha-male welfare claimant the father, who comes home from pub visits with his pathetic sycophant mates to intimidate and abuse his wife Beth, played by Rena Owen, and their five children. He shows no concern to the fate of his older boys who have drifted into gangland culture and illegal activities, as well as his sensitive daughter Grace, who has talent as a storyteller. One son receives tattoos; the other is sent to a juvenile reformatory where he is at least educated in the ways of Maori culture – the haka and the traditional weapon – and gains dignity and self-respect. But back at the disordered home, Grace is assaulted by Jake’s grotesque friend “Bully”; tragedy ensues, and Beth passionately confronts the wretched Jake: “Our ancestors used to be fighters, but in contrast to you, they, they were individuals with honor, pride; people with spirit …”
Emotional Violence and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori unleashed with such intense drama, and delivered powerful blows with bar sequences, the home scenes and the gang ritual initiation scenes, handling them with assurance and verve. He crafted a gutsy, heartfelt picture with a distinctly 90s streak of edginess. It succeeded with viewers and reviewers, and – whether positive or negative – strongly influenced studio heads in Hollywood who recognized how Tamahori could bring that dynamism and flair to commercial projects.
American Films and Diverse Work
Stateside, Tamahori made the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who ignore procedure, and then the David Mamet-scripted survival thriller The Bear with the actor and Alec Baldwin as characters who journey through the wilderness after their plane crashes. (This film gained cult status when the producer Art Linson wrote amusingly about the turbulent production of filming with an animal actor in his witty Hollywood book What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a decent thriller, and he earned again filming the second in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
Bond Film and Career Shifts
Yet the peak, or maybe the low point, of his Hollywood career 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. Why would anyone need such a car, viewers asked? This car which makes it very hard to remember where you parked it.
Subsequent Projects and Comeback
After this, Tamahori discovered some more interesting form. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured Dominic Cooper in dual parts of the dictator's hideous son Uday and also his body double, employed to protect the young tyrant-princeling from assassination or kidnapping: this was a punchy, engaging movie which sidestepped typical doppelganger cliches. And in later years, he returned to the subject of Maori culture, directing The Convert in 2023, working with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter Shane Danielsen. Tamahori was an outstanding director – but it remained his debut, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
