In 1994, the director Lee Tamahori made one of the most significant debuts of the decade, firing on all six cylinders with his heartbreaking social-realist melodrama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes represent a blue-collar Maori household in Auckland's south: the actor is the drinking, fighting, boasting alpha-male welfare claimant the father, who returns from pub visits with his pathetic sycophant mates to intimidate and abuse Beth, his spouse, played by Rena Owen, and their kids. He is entirely indifferent to the fate of his two elder sons who have fallen into gangland culture and illegal activities, as well as his sensitive daughter Grace, who shows promise as a writer. One son gets gang tattoos; another is sent to a youth detention where he is partly educated in the ways of indigenous heritage – the war dance and the traditional weapon – and learns self-worth and self-respect. Meanwhile at the disordered home, the daughter is raped by Jake’s grotesque friend “Bully”; tragedy ensues, and Beth forcefully challenges the wretched Jake: “Our ancestors used to be fighters, but unlike you, Jake, they were individuals with honor, pride; people with spirit …”
Emotional Violence and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori unleashed with such emotional violence, and landed sledgehammer punches with bar sequences, domestic moments and gang initiation rituals, handling them with assurance and verve. He created a gutsy, sincere picture with a distinctly 90s touch of brash and trash. It succeeded with viewers and critics, and – for good or ill – strongly influenced industry executives in Hollywood who recognized how he could apply this energy and talent to commercial projects.
Hollywood Career and Varied Projects
Stateside, Tamahori made the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who ignore protocol, and then a script by Mamet survival thriller The Bear with the actor and his co-star as two men who trek through wild terrain after their plane crashes. (This moderate movie gained cult status when its producer Art Linson wrote amusingly about the chaotic circumstances of shooting with a trained bear in his droll tinseltown memoir 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 Career Shifts
Yet the peak, or maybe the nadir, of his Hollywood career was taking on the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; it was the installment derided for having the worst gadget in the series – the invisible car. Why would anyone need an invisible car, audiences wondered? It was a vehicle which makes it very hard to remember where you parked it.
Subsequent Projects and Comeback
Following this, the director found some more interesting form. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred the actor in dual parts of the dictator's hideous son Uday and also his body double, employed to shield the young tyrant-princeling from assassination or kidnapping: this was a punchy, watchable film which avoided typical double tropes. And in later years, he returned to the theme of Maori culture, directing The Convert in 2023, collaborating with writer his partner. He proved to be an outstanding filmmaker – but it remained his first film, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
