During 1994, this film-maker Lee Tamahori delivered one of the most significant first films of that era, firing on all six cylinders with the gut-wrenching social-realist melodrama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes are a blue-collar indigenous household in Auckland's south: Temuera Morrison is the drinking, brawling, boasting dominant welfare claimant Jake, who comes home from drinking in the pub with his weak followers to intimidate and abuse his wife Beth, played by Rena Owen, and their kids. He shows no concern to the fate of his older boys who have drifted into gang life and illegal activities, including 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 educated in the ways of Maori culture – the haka and the traditional weapon – and learns self-worth and self-respect. Meanwhile at Jake’s chaotic house, the daughter is raped by a repulsive acquaintance “Uncle Bully”; disaster follows, and Beth passionately confronts the wretched Jake: “Our people used to be fighters, but unlike you, they, they were individuals with honor, dignity; people with spirit …”
Emotional Violence and Confident Direction
Tamahori let rip with all this emotional violence, and landed sledgehammer punches with the pub scenes, domestic moments and gang initiation rituals, directing them with confidence and energy. He created a bold, heartfelt picture with a very 90s touch of brash and trash. It was a hit with viewers and reviewers, and – for good or ill – deeply impressed studio heads in Hollywood who could see how he could apply that dynamism and flair to mainstream genre material.
American Films and Varied Projects
In America, the director directed the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who care nothing for procedure, and then the David Mamet-scripted survival thriller The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and his co-star as two men who trek through wild terrain after their plane crashes. (This moderate movie became a cult favorite when its producer he wrote amusingly about the chaotic circumstances of filming with a trained bear in his droll tinseltown memoir What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a decent thriller, and he had another payday directing the second in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Professional Changes
Yet the peak, or maybe the nadir, of his American work was taking on the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; this was the installment derided for having the poorest device in 007 history – a cloaked vehicle. Why would anyone need an invisible car, audiences wondered? This car which makes it very hard to remember where you parked it.
Later Work and Comeback
Following this, the director found renewed creativity. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured the actor in the twin roles of Saddam Hussein’s brutal offspring Uday and also Uday’s decoy double, used to protect the heir from attack or kidnapping: it was a forceful, engaging movie which avoided typical double tropes. And in later years, he went back to the subject of indigenous traditions, making The Convert in 2023, working with writer his partner. He proved to be an outstanding director – but it was his first film, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
