During 1994, this director Lee Tamahori made one of the most significant debuts of the decade, firing on all six cylinders with the heartbreaking social-realist melodrama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes represent a working-class Maori family in South Auckland: Temuera Morrison plays the drinking, fighting, bragging dominant benefit recipient the father, who comes home from drinking in the pub with his weak followers to terrorise and assault Beth, his spouse, played by Rena Owen, and their five children. He shows no concern to the future of his older boys who have fallen into gangland culture and crime, as well as his gentle daughter Grace, who has talent as a writer. A son receives gang tattoos; another is taken to a youth detention where he is partly educated in the traditions of indigenous heritage – the war dance and the taiaha warrior spear – and learns dignity and self-respect. Meanwhile at the disordered home, Grace is raped by a repulsive acquaintance “Bully”; tragedy ensues, and the mother passionately confronts the despicable Jake: “Our ancestors used to be fighters, but unlike you, Jake, they were people with mana, pride; soulful beings …”
Raw Emotion 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 energy. He created a gutsy, heartfelt film with a very 90s touch of brash and trash. It succeeded with audiences and reviewers, and – whether positive or negative – deeply impressed studio heads in the film industry who could see how he could apply that dynamism and talent to commercial projects.
American Films and Varied Projects
Stateside, the director directed the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who ignore procedure, and then a script by Mamet adventure drama The Bear with the actor and Alec Baldwin as characters who trek through the wilderness after their plane crashes. (This moderate movie gained cult status when the producer Art Linson wrote amusingly about the turbulent production of shooting with an animal actor in his droll tinseltown memoir What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a decent suspense film, and he had another payday directing 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 American work was directing the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; this was the Bond film derided for having the poorest device in 007 history – the invisible car. What is the point an invisible car, viewers asked? This car that makes it difficult to remember where you parked it.
Subsequent Projects and Return
After this, Tamahori discovered some more interesting form. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred the actor in the twin roles of the dictator's hideous son Uday and as well as Uday’s decoy double, used to protect the young tyrant-princeling from assassination or kidnapping: it was a forceful, engaging film which sidestepped typical doppelganger tropes. In subsequent times, he returned to the theme of indigenous traditions, making The Convert in 2023, collaborating with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter Shane Danielsen. He proved to be an outstanding filmmaker – but it remained his debut, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
