Lee Tamahori's First Film Once Were Warriors Revealed a Filmmaker of Courage and Style

During 1994, the film-maker Lee Tamahori delivered one of the most significant first films of that era, operating at full capacity with the gut-wrenching social-realist melodrama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes represent a working-class Maori family in South Auckland: Temuera Morrison is the drinking, brawling, boasting alpha-male benefit recipient Jake, who returns from drinking in the pub with his pathetic sycophant mates to intimidate and abuse his wife Beth, portrayed by Rena Owen, and their kids. He is entirely indifferent to the fate of his two elder sons who have drifted into gangland culture and illegal activities, including his sensitive daughter Grace, who shows promise as a writer. One son receives gang tattoos; another is taken to a juvenile reformatory where he is at least tutored in the ways of Maori culture – the war dance and the traditional weapon – and learns dignity and self-respect. Meanwhile at Jake’s chaotic house, Grace is assaulted by Jake’s grotesque friend “Uncle Bully”; tragedy ensues, and the mother passionately confronts the wretched Jake: “Our people once were warriors, but unlike you, they, they were people with mana, pride; soulful beings …”

Emotional Violence and Confident Direction

Tamahori unleashed with such emotional violence, and landed sledgehammer punches with bar sequences, domestic moments and gang initiation rituals, directing them with assurance and energy. He created a gutsy, heartfelt picture with a very 90s touch of brash and trash. It succeeded with viewers and reviewers, and – for good or ill – deeply impressed industry executives in the film industry who could see how Tamahori could bring this energy and flair to commercial projects.

Hollywood Career and Diverse Work

Stateside, the director made the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who care nothing for protocol, and then the David Mamet-scripted survival thriller The Bear with the actor and Alec Baldwin as two men who trek through the wilderness after their plane crashes. (This moderate movie gained cult status when the producer Art Linson wrote humorously 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 earned again directing the sequel in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.

007 Movie and Professional Changes

But the high point, or maybe the low point, of his American work was directing the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; this was the installment mocked for having the poorest device in the series – a cloaked vehicle. What is the point an invisible car, audiences wondered? It was a vehicle that makes it difficult to recall where you parked it.

Subsequent Projects and Return

After this, the director discovered renewed creativity. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured Dominic Cooper in dual parts of the dictator's hideous son Uday and also Uday’s decoy double, used to protect the heir from assassination or abduction: this was a punchy, engaging film which avoided the usual doppelganger tropes. And in later years, Tamahori returned to the subject of indigenous traditions, making The Convert in 2023, working with writer his partner. Tamahori was an outstanding director – but it was his debut, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.