Lee Tamahori's First Film Once Were Warriors Showcased a Director of Courage and Style
In 1994, the director Lee Tamahori made one of the most significant first films of that era, firing on all six cylinders with his gut-wrenching socially conscious drama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes represent a working-class indigenous household in Auckland's south: Temuera Morrison is the boozing, brawling, boasting alpha-male welfare claimant Jake, who returns from drinking in the pub with his pathetic sycophant mates to terrorise and assault his wife Beth, played by Rena Owen, and their kids. He shows no concern to the future of his older boys who have fallen into gangland culture and illegal activities, as well as his gentle daughter Grace, who shows promise as a writer. A son receives tattoos; another is taken to a youth detention where he is partly educated in the ways of Maori culture – the haka and the taiaha warrior spear – and gains self-worth and self-respect. Meanwhile at Jake’s chaotic house, the daughter is raped by Jake’s grotesque friend “Bully”; tragedy ensues, and Beth forcefully challenges the despicable Jake: “Our ancestors once were warriors, but unlike you, they, they were individuals with honor, dignity; soulful beings …”
Emotional Violence and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori unleashed with such intense drama, and landed sledgehammer punches with bar sequences, domestic moments and the gang ritual initiation scenes, handling them with confidence and verve. He crafted a gutsy, sincere picture with a very 90s streak of edginess. It was a hit with viewers and reviewers, and – for good or ill – deeply impressed industry executives in Hollywood who could see how Tamahori could apply that dynamism and flair to mainstream genre material.
Hollywood Career and Diverse Work
In America, the director made the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who ignore protocol, and then the David Mamet-scripted survival thriller The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and his co-star as two men who trek through the wilderness after their plane crashes. (This film became a cult favorite when its producer he wrote humorously about the turbulent production of filming with an animal actor in his witty Hollywood book What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a serviceable suspense film, and he had another payday directing the sequel in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Professional Changes
Yet the peak, or maybe the low point, of Lee Tamahori’s American work was taking on the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; it was the installment derided for having the poorest device in 007 history – the invisible car. Why would anyone need an invisible car, audiences wondered? This car which makes it very hard to recall where you parked it.
Later Work and Comeback
After this, the director discovered renewed creativity. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured the actor in the twin roles of the dictator's hideous son Uday and as well as his body double, employed to shield the young tyrant-princeling from assassination or abduction: this was a forceful, watchable movie which avoided typical double cliches. And in later years, Tamahori went back to the subject of Maori culture, directing The Convert in 2023, working with writer his partner. Tamahori was an exceptional director – but it remained his debut, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
