During 1994, the film-maker Lee Tamahori made one of the most significant first films of that era, firing on all six cylinders with his gut-wrenching social-realist melodrama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes represent a working-class Maori family in Auckland's south: Temuera Morrison plays the drinking, fighting, boasting alpha-male benefit recipient Jake, who comes home from pub visits with his weak followers to intimidate and abuse his wife Beth, portrayed by Rena Owen, and their kids. He shows no concern to the fate of his two elder sons who have fallen into gangland culture and illegal activities, including his gentle daughter the girl, who shows promise as a storyteller. One son gets tattoos; another is taken to a youth detention where he is partly tutored in the traditions of indigenous heritage – the haka and the traditional weapon – and gains self-worth and self-respect. Meanwhile at the disordered home, the daughter is assaulted by a repulsive acquaintance “Bully”; tragedy ensues, and the mother passionately confronts the despicable Jake: “Our people used to be fighters, but unlike you, Jake, they were people with mana, dignity; people with spirit …”
Emotional Violence and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori unleashed with all this intense drama, and landed sledgehammer punches with bar sequences, domestic moments and the gang ritual initiation scenes, handling them with confidence and energy. He crafted a gutsy, sincere film with a very 90s touch of edginess. It was a hit with viewers and reviewers, and – for good or ill – strongly influenced studio heads in Hollywood who recognized how Tamahori could bring that dynamism and talent to mainstream genre material.
American Films and Varied Projects
In America, the director directed the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who care nothing for protocol, and then a script by Mamet adventure drama The Bear with the actor and his co-star as characters who journey through wild terrain after their plane crashes. (This moderate movie became a cult favorite when the producer Art Linson wrote humorously about the turbulent production of shooting 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.
007 Movie and Career Shifts
Yet the peak, or maybe the nadir, of his American work was taking on the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; it was the Bond film mocked for having the worst gadget in the series – a cloaked vehicle. Why would anyone need such a car, viewers asked? This car which makes it very hard to recall its parking spot.
Later Work and Comeback
Following this, Tamahori discovered renewed creativity. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured the actor in the twin roles of the dictator's brutal offspring Uday and also Uday’s decoy double, used to shield the young tyrant-princeling from attack or abduction: this was a punchy, engaging movie which avoided typical 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 his partner. Tamahori was an outstanding director – but it was his debut, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
