In 1994, the director Lee Tamahori made one of the biggest debuts of that era, operating at full capacity with the gut-wrenching socially conscious melodrama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes are a working-class indigenous family in Auckland's south: the actor plays the drinking, brawling, boasting alpha-male welfare claimant the father, who comes home from pub visits with his weak followers to terrorise and abuse his wife Beth, played by Rena Owen, and their five children. He is entirely indifferent to the future of his older boys who have fallen into gangland culture and illegal activities, including his gentle daughter the girl, who has talent as a storyteller. A son gets gang tattoos; another is taken to a youth detention where he is partly educated in the ways of indigenous heritage – the haka and the traditional weapon – and gains dignity and self-respect. But back at the disordered home, the daughter is assaulted by a repulsive acquaintance “Uncle Bully”; tragedy ensues, and Beth passionately confronts the wretched Jake: “Our people once were warriors, but unlike you, they, they were individuals with honor, pride; soulful beings …”
Emotional Violence and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori unleashed with such emotional violence, and delivered powerful blows with the pub scenes, the home scenes and the gang ritual initiation scenes, handling them with assurance and verve. He created a bold, heartfelt picture with a very 90s streak of brash and trash. It succeeded with audiences and reviewers, and – whether positive or negative – strongly influenced industry executives in the film industry who could see how he could bring that dynamism and flair to mainstream genre material.
American Films and Varied Projects
In America, the director made the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who care nothing for protocol, and then the David Mamet-scripted adventure drama The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and his co-star as characters who trek through wild terrain after a plane crash. (This film gained cult status when the producer Art Linson wrote amusingly about the chaotic circumstances of filming with a trained bear in his droll tinseltown memoir What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a serviceable thriller, and he earned again filming the sequel in the XXX series XXX State of the Union.
Bond Film and Career Shifts
Yet the peak, or maybe the nadir, of his American work was directing the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; this was the installment mocked for having the worst gadget in the series – a cloaked vehicle. Why would anyone need such a car, viewers asked? It was a vehicle that makes it difficult to recall where you parked it.
Later Work and Return
After this, Tamahori discovered renewed creativity. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured Dominic Cooper in dual parts of the dictator's brutal offspring Uday and as well as Uday’s decoy double, used to protect the young tyrant-princeling from attack or abduction: this was a forceful, engaging movie which avoided typical doppelganger cliches. And in later years, Tamahori returned to the theme of indigenous traditions, directing The Convert in 2023, working with writer Shane Danielsen. He proved to be an outstanding director – but it was his debut, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
