Lee Tamahori's Debut Once Were Warriors Revealed a Director of Guts and Flair
During 1994, this director Lee Tamahori delivered one of the biggest first films of the decade, firing on all six cylinders with his gut-wrenching socially conscious melodrama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes represent a working-class indigenous family in Auckland's south: Temuera Morrison plays the drinking, fighting, boasting alpha-male welfare claimant Jake, who comes home from drinking in the pub with his pathetic sycophant mates to intimidate and assault his wife Beth, played by Rena Owen, and their kids. He is entirely indifferent to the future of his two elder sons who have fallen into gangland culture and crime, including his sensitive daughter Grace, who has talent as a writer. A son receives tattoos; another is sent to a juvenile reformatory where he is partly educated in the ways of Maori culture – the war dance and the traditional weapon – and learns dignity and pride. But back at Jake’s chaotic house, the daughter is assaulted by a repulsive acquaintance “Uncle Bully”; disaster follows, and Beth forcefully challenges the despicable Jake: “Our people used to be fighters, but in contrast to you, they, they were individuals with honor, dignity; soulful beings …”
Emotional Violence and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori unleashed with all this intense drama, and landed sledgehammer punches with the pub scenes, domestic moments and gang initiation rituals, directing them with confidence and verve. He created a gutsy, heartfelt film with a distinctly 90s streak of edginess. It was a hit with viewers and critics, and – for good or ill – deeply impressed industry executives in the film industry who recognized how Tamahori could apply this energy and talent to mainstream genre material.
American Films and Varied Projects
In America, Tamahori made the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who ignore protocol, and then a script by Mamet survival thriller The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin as characters who trek through wild terrain after a plane crash. (This film became a cult favorite when the producer he 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 serviceable suspense film, and he earned again filming the second in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
Bond Film and Professional Changes
Yet the peak, or perhaps the low point, of Lee Tamahori’s American work was directing the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; this was the installment mocked for having the poorest device in the series – a cloaked vehicle. Why would anyone need such a car, audiences wondered? This car that makes it difficult to remember where you parked it.
Later Work and Return
After this, the director found renewed creativity. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred the actor in dual parts of Saddam Hussein’s brutal offspring the character and also Uday’s decoy double, employed to shield the heir from assassination or kidnapping: this was a punchy, engaging film which sidestepped the usual double cliches. And in later years, he returned to the subject of Maori culture, making The Convert in 2023, working with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter Shane Danielsen. He proved to be an exceptional director – but it remained his debut, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
