During 1994, this film-maker Lee Tamahori made one of the biggest debuts of the decade, operating at full capacity with his gut-wrenching social-realist melodrama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes represent a blue-collar indigenous household in South Auckland: the actor is the drinking, brawling, boasting dominant benefit recipient the father, who comes home from pub visits with his weak followers to terrorise and assault Beth, his spouse, played by Rena Owen, and their five children. He is entirely indifferent to the fate of his older boys who have fallen into gangland culture and crime, including his gentle daughter the girl, who has talent as a storyteller. A son receives tattoos; the other is sent to a youth detention where he is at least educated in the ways of indigenous heritage – the war dance and the taiaha warrior spear – and learns dignity and pride. Meanwhile at Jake’s chaotic house, the daughter is assaulted by a repulsive acquaintance “Bully”; disaster follows, and Beth passionately confronts the wretched Jake: “Our ancestors used to be fighters, but in contrast to you, they, they were individuals with honor, dignity; soulful beings …”
Raw Emotion and Confident Direction
Tamahori unleashed with such intense drama, and delivered powerful blows with bar sequences, domestic moments and the gang ritual initiation scenes, directing them with assurance and verve. He created a gutsy, heartfelt film with a very 90s streak of brash and trash. It succeeded with viewers and reviewers, and – for good or ill – strongly influenced industry executives in the film industry who recognized how he could apply this energy and talent to mainstream genre material.
Hollywood Career and Varied Projects
Stateside, the director made the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who care nothing for procedure, and then a script by Mamet survival thriller The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and his co-star as characters who trek through wild terrain after their plane crashes. (This film became a cult favorite when its producer he wrote amusingly about the turbulent production of shooting with an animal actor in his witty Hollywood book What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a decent suspense film, and he had another payday filming the second in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Career Shifts
But the high point, or maybe the low point, of his Hollywood career was directing the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; this was the installment mocked for having the worst gadget in the series – a cloaked vehicle. Why would anyone need an invisible car, viewers asked? It was a vehicle which makes it very hard to recall where you parked it.
Subsequent Projects and Return
Following this, Tamahori discovered some more interesting form. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured Dominic Cooper in the twin roles of Saddam Hussein’s hideous son the character and also his body double, employed to protect the young tyrant-princeling from attack or kidnapping: it was a punchy, engaging film which avoided the usual doppelganger cliches. And in later years, he went back to the theme of indigenous traditions, making The Convert in 2023, collaborating with writer his partner. He proved to be an outstanding filmmaker – but it remained his first film, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
