In 1994, the director Lee Tamahori made one of the most significant first films of that era, operating at full capacity with his heartbreaking social-realist melodrama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes are a working-class indigenous family in South Auckland: the actor plays the boozing, brawling, bragging alpha-male benefit recipient Jake, who returns from drinking in the pub with his pathetic sycophant mates to terrorise and assault his wife Beth, played by Rena Owen, and their five children. He is entirely indifferent to the future of his two elder sons who have fallen into gang life and crime, including his gentle daughter Grace, who shows promise as a storyteller. One son receives tattoos; the other is taken to a youth detention where he is at least tutored in the traditions of indigenous heritage – the war dance and the traditional weapon – and gains dignity and self-respect. Meanwhile at Jake’s chaotic house, Grace is raped by Jake’s grotesque friend “Bully”; disaster follows, and the mother passionately confronts the despicable Jake: “Our ancestors once were warriors, but unlike you, they, they were individuals with honor, pride; people with spirit …”
Raw Emotion and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori unleashed with all this emotional violence, and delivered powerful blows with bar sequences, domestic moments and gang initiation rituals, handling them with assurance and energy. He created a bold, heartfelt picture with a very 90s streak of brash and trash. It was a hit with audiences and critics, and – for good or ill – strongly influenced industry executives in the film industry who recognized how Tamahori could bring this energy and talent to commercial projects.
Hollywood Career and Diverse Work
Stateside, Tamahori made the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who ignore protocol, and then the David Mamet-scripted survival thriller The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin as characters who trek through the wilderness after a plane crash. (This film became a cult favorite when its producer Art Linson wrote amusingly about the turbulent production of filming with an animal actor in his droll tinseltown memoir What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a serviceable suspense film, and he had another payday directing the second in the XXX series XXX State of the Union.
Bond Film and Professional Changes
Yet the peak, or maybe the nadir, of Lee Tamahori’s Hollywood career was directing the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; it was the installment derided for having the worst gadget in the series – a cloaked vehicle. Why would anyone need an invisible car, viewers asked? It was a vehicle that makes it difficult to recall where you parked it.
Subsequent Projects and Comeback
Following this, the director discovered some more interesting form. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured Dominic Cooper in the twin roles of Saddam Hussein’s brutal offspring Uday and as well as his body double, used to shield the young tyrant-princeling from attack or abduction: it was a punchy, engaging movie which avoided the usual doppelganger cliches. In subsequent times, he went back to the theme of indigenous traditions, directing The Convert in 2023, collaborating with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter Shane Danielsen. Tamahori was an exceptional filmmaker – but it was his first film, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
