During 1994, the film-maker Lee Tamahori delivered one of the most significant first films of the decade, operating at full capacity with his heartbreaking social-realist drama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes are a blue-collar indigenous household in South Auckland: the actor plays the boozing, brawling, bragging dominant welfare claimant Jake, who returns from pub visits with his pathetic sycophant mates to intimidate and assault Beth, his spouse, portrayed by Rena Owen, and their kids. He is entirely indifferent to the future of his older boys who have drifted into gangland culture and crime, as well as his sensitive daughter Grace, who has talent as a writer. One son gets gang tattoos; another is taken to a juvenile reformatory where he is at least tutored in the ways of indigenous heritage – the war dance and the taiaha warrior spear – and learns self-worth and pride. But back at Jake’s chaotic house, the daughter is raped by Jake’s grotesque friend “Bully”; disaster follows, and the mother forcefully challenges the wretched Jake: “Our ancestors once were warriors, but in contrast to you, Jake, they were people with mana, dignity; people with spirit …”
Raw Emotion and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori let rip with all this intense drama, and delivered powerful blows with the pub scenes, the home scenes and the gang ritual initiation scenes, handling them with confidence and energy. He created a bold, sincere film with a very 90s touch of edginess. It succeeded with audiences and critics, 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 aggressive police officers who care nothing for procedure, and then a script by Mamet adventure drama The Bear with the actor and his co-star as characters who trek through wild terrain after their plane crashes. (This moderate movie gained cult status when its producer he wrote amusingly about the turbulent production of filming with a trained bear in his droll tinseltown memoir What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a decent suspense film, and he had another payday filming the sequel in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Professional Changes
But the high point, or maybe the nadir, of his American work was taking on the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; it was the installment derided for having the poorest device in the series – a cloaked vehicle. What is the point an invisible car, viewers asked? This car that makes it difficult to remember its parking spot.
Subsequent Projects and Comeback
Following this, the director discovered some more interesting form. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred the actor in the twin roles of Saddam Hussein’s brutal offspring Uday and also his body double, employed to protect the heir from attack or kidnapping: this was a punchy, engaging movie which avoided typical double tropes. And in later years, he went back to the subject of indigenous traditions, directing The Convert in 2023, collaborating with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter Shane Danielsen. He proved to be an outstanding director – but it was his first film, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
