Lee Tamahori's Debut Once Were Warriors Showcased a Director of Guts and Flair
During 1994, the film-maker Lee Tamahori made one of the most significant debuts of that era, firing on all six cylinders with the heartbreaking social-realist melodrama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes are a working-class Maori household in Auckland's south: Temuera Morrison is the boozing, fighting, boasting dominant welfare claimant the father, who returns from drinking in the pub with his weak followers to terrorise and assault his wife Beth, portrayed by the actress, and their kids. He is entirely indifferent to the future of his two elder sons who have fallen into gangland culture and crime, as well as his sensitive daughter the girl, who shows promise as a writer. One son gets gang tattoos; another is sent to a youth detention where he is at least tutored in the ways of indigenous heritage – the haka and the taiaha warrior spear – and learns self-worth and self-respect. Meanwhile at Jake’s chaotic house, Grace is assaulted by Jake’s grotesque friend “Uncle Bully”; disaster follows, and Beth passionately confronts the wretched Jake: “Our people used to be fighters, but in contrast to you, they, they were individuals with honor, pride; people with spirit …”
Emotional Violence and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori let rip with all this intense drama, and landed sledgehammer punches with bar sequences, the home scenes and gang initiation rituals, directing them with confidence and verve. He created a gutsy, heartfelt picture with a distinctly 90s streak of brash and trash. It succeeded with audiences and reviewers, and – for good or ill – deeply impressed industry executives in Hollywood who could see how Tamahori could bring this energy and flair to mainstream genre material.
Hollywood Career and Varied Projects
In America, Tamahori directed the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who ignore procedure, and then the David Mamet-scripted adventure drama The Bear with the actor and his co-star as characters who journey through the wilderness after a plane crash. (This moderate movie became a cult favorite when its producer Art Linson wrote amusingly about the chaotic circumstances of filming with a trained bear 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.
Bond Film and Professional Changes
But the high point, or perhaps the nadir, of Lee Tamahori’s American work was taking on the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; this was the Bond film derided for having the worst gadget in the series – the invisible car. Why would anyone need such a car, audiences wondered? This car which makes it very hard to remember its parking spot.
Later Work and Comeback
Following this, the director discovered some more interesting form. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured Dominic Cooper in dual parts of Saddam Hussein’s hideous son Uday and also his body double, employed to protect the heir from assassination or abduction: this was a punchy, watchable film which avoided typical double tropes. In subsequent times, he returned to the subject of indigenous traditions, making The Convert in 2023, collaborating with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter his partner. Tamahori was an exceptional director – but it was his debut, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.