During 1994, this director Lee Tamahori delivered one of the most significant first films of the decade, operating at full capacity with the heartbreaking socially conscious drama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes represent a blue-collar Maori household in South Auckland: the actor plays the drinking, brawling, bragging dominant benefit recipient Jake, who comes home from drinking in the pub with his pathetic sycophant mates to terrorise and abuse his wife Beth, played by the actress, and their five children. He shows no concern to the future of his older boys who have drifted into gang life and illegal activities, as well as his sensitive daughter the girl, who shows promise as a writer. One son gets tattoos; another is sent to a youth detention where he is partly tutored in the ways of indigenous heritage – the haka and the taiaha warrior spear – and gains self-worth and pride. Meanwhile at Jake’s chaotic house, Grace is raped by a repulsive acquaintance “Uncle Bully”; tragedy ensues, and Beth passionately confronts the wretched Jake: “Our ancestors used to be fighters, but in contrast to you, Jake, they were people with mana, dignity; people with spirit …”
Raw Emotion and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori let rip with all this intense drama, and landed sledgehammer punches with the pub scenes, domestic moments and gang initiation rituals, handling them with assurance and verve. He crafted a bold, heartfelt film with a very 90s streak of brash and trash. It was a hit with viewers and reviewers, and – whether positive or negative – deeply impressed studio heads in the film industry who recognized how he could apply this energy and flair to commercial projects.
Hollywood Career and Varied Projects
Stateside, the director made the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who care nothing for protocol, and then a script by Mamet survival thriller The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin as characters who journey through wild terrain after their plane crashes. (This film became a cult favorite when the producer Art Linson wrote humorously about the turbulent production of filming with a trained bear in his witty Hollywood book 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 Career Shifts
But the high point, or maybe the nadir, of his Hollywood career was directing the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; it was the installment mocked for having the worst gadget 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 where you parked it.
Subsequent Projects and Return
After this, the director found some more interesting form. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred the actor in dual parts of the dictator's hideous son the character and also his body double, employed to shield the heir from attack or abduction: this was a punchy, watchable film which sidestepped the usual doppelganger tropes. And in later years, he went back to the subject of indigenous traditions, making The Convert in 2023, working with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter his partner. Tamahori was an exceptional director – but it was his first film, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
