In 1994, the film-maker Lee Tamahori delivered one of the biggest first films of the decade, firing on all six cylinders with his heartbreaking socially conscious melodrama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes represent a working-class Maori household in Auckland's south: the actor plays the drinking, brawling, boasting dominant welfare claimant Jake, who comes home from pub visits with his pathetic sycophant mates to terrorise and assault his wife Beth, played by the actress, and their five children. He is entirely indifferent to the fate of his older boys who have fallen into gang life and illegal activities, as well as his gentle daughter Grace, who has talent as a storyteller. One son gets tattoos; another is taken to a juvenile reformatory where he is at least tutored in the traditions of Maori culture – the haka and the traditional weapon – and learns dignity and pride. But back at Jake’s chaotic house, the daughter is raped by Jake’s grotesque friend “Bully”; tragedy ensues, and the mother passionately confronts the despicable Jake: “Our ancestors used to be fighters, but in contrast to you, they, they were people with mana, pride; soulful beings …”
Emotional Violence and Confident Direction
Tamahori let rip with all this intense drama, and delivered powerful blows with bar sequences, the home scenes and the gang ritual initiation scenes, handling them with assurance and verve. He created a gutsy, heartfelt film with a very 90s streak of edginess. It was a hit with audiences and reviewers, and – whether positive or negative – strongly influenced industry executives in Hollywood who recognized how he could bring this energy and talent to commercial projects.
Hollywood Career and Diverse Work
In America, Tamahori made the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who ignore procedure, and then a script by Mamet survival thriller The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin as two men who journey through the wilderness after a plane crash. (This film became a cult favorite when the 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 earned again directing 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 Hollywood career was taking on the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; this was the installment derided for having the worst gadget in 007 history – the invisible car. Why would anyone need such a car, viewers asked? This car which makes it very hard to remember its parking spot.
Subsequent Projects and Return
Following this, Tamahori discovered renewed creativity. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured the actor in the twin roles of the dictator's hideous son the character and also Uday’s decoy double, used to protect the young tyrant-princeling from assassination or abduction: this was a forceful, engaging film which avoided the usual doppelganger tropes. In subsequent times, he went back to the theme of indigenous traditions, directing The Convert in 2023, collaborating with writer his partner. Tamahori was an exceptional director – but it remained his first film, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
